Violence is Art... and Art is Violence
If you've never seen a film by Takashi Miike, a Japanese director, then you will be floored by this movie. The first ten minutes will tire you out, and you'll probably have no concept of reality. You'll wonder how it's possible for a gangster to snort a line of coke from here to the moon without passing out, and you'll find yourself asking if blood would really spray like that. But this is good. You want to be asking things like this, because if you're amazed at the first ten minutes, then the rest of the movie will be the most spectacular sight you have ever seen.
The film follows Jojima, a Japanese detective trying to prevent a group of Chinese immigrants from taking out the Yakuza kings. Alternately, the film also follows Jojima's nemesis, Ryuichi, the ringleader in the group of immigrants. What follows is a tirade of violent scenes done so artistically and so deliciously evil they can be excused. This wouldn't have worked if the movie had taken itself seriously. All of the violence, no matter how realistic or disturbing, is fairly humorous at some level or another. At one scene, a man is being held at gunpoint, and his hand at his left, looking for something to clutch and use it as a weapon. Instead, he accidentally breads and deep fries his own hand in the kitchen. You might start screaming when you see it, but you just might end up laughing.
The ending proves my point that the violence is meant to be humorous. It's so fantastic, so unbelievably unbelievable, yet it doesn't seem out of place at all. In fact, if you're really smart, you just might see the ending coming. Luckily for me, it caught me by surprise, and I was extremely impressed. This movie is not for the faint of heart, or extremely logical. If you're going to nitpick at how far the blood shoots or just where the rocket launcher came from, you need to stay far, far away from this movie.
If you've never seen a Japanese film, this will be a rough introduction. The only American director I could possibly compare Miike to is Quentin Tarantino. Both portray crime as something very casual, but with great respect. Both are overly violent, and both use a very subtle humor. In those respects, Tarantino is funnier, and Miike is bloodier. So if you're looking for a different kind of movie instead of the standard boring stuff, I highly suggest you look into this. You'll have to import it, because I don't believe it has seen a US release. You won't see a badass gangster carrying shotgun over his shoulder while the people around him act like nothing is going on in an American film, that's for sure.