Event

DEAD OR ALIVE 3: FINAL

Dir. Takashi Miike, 2001.
Japan. 89 min.

After the hyper-violent chaos of the first film and the nearly languid nostalgia-trip of the second, Miike takes DEAD OR ALIVE 3: FINAL through another wild turn towards pure cyberpunk territory. Set 300 years in the future when Japan is the last country on earth and yet almost no one speaks Japanese, Show Aikawa plays a fugitive replicant who befriends a small boy and falls in with a group of bickering resistance fighters. Hot on his trail is Riki Takeuchi in sunglasses and a stylish leather trench coat, begrudgingly taking orders from a maniacal general bent on spreading sexual repression throughout the land. Filled with stylish MATRIX-inspired action sequences, some impressively dystopic looking Hong Kong cinematography, and a wonderfully weird semi-nude saxophone obsessed henchman, DEAD OR ALIVE 3: FINAL manages to expand upon everything great about the series so far, while underscoring it with a refreshingly self-referential subtext that delivers some truly gonzo thrills of its own.