"Actor: Riki Takeuchi"

• Dead or Alive Trilogy | Blu Ray | (27/03/2017) from £24.69   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Beginning with an explosive, six-minute montage of sex, drugs and violence, and ending with a phallus-headed battle robot taking flight, Takashi Miike's unforgettable Dead or Alive Trilogy features many of the director's most outrageous moments set alongside some of his most dramatically moving scenes. Made between 1999 and 2002, the Dead or Alive films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terrible of Japanese cinema, yet also one of its most talented and innovative filmmakers. In Dead or Alive, tough gangster Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) and his ethnically Chinese gang make a play to take over the drug trade in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by massacring the competition. But he meets his match in detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), who will do everything to stop them. Dead or Alive 2: Birds casts Aikawa and Takeuchi together again, but as new characters, a pair of rival yakuza assassins who turn out to be childhood friends; after a botched hit, they flee together to the island where they grew up, and decide to devote their deadly skills to a more humanitarian cause. And in Dead or Alive: Final, Takeuchi and Aikawa are catapulted into a future Yokohama ruled by multilingual gangs and cyborg soldiers, where they once again butt heads in the action-packed and cyberpunk-tinged finale to the trilogy. Each of them unique in theme and tone, the Dead or Alive films showcase Miike at the peak of his strengths, creating three very distinct movies connected only by their two popular main actors, each film a separate yet superb example of crime drama, character study, and action filmmaking. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition digital transfers of all three films Original uncompressed stereo audio Optional English subtitles for all three films New interview with actor Riki Takeuchi New interview with actor Sho Aikawa New interview with producer and screenwriter Toshiki Kimura New audio commentary for Dead or Alive by Miike biographer Tom Mes Archive interviews with cast and crew Archive making-of featurettes for DOA2: Birds and DOA: Final Original theatrical trailers for all three films Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena

• Dead Or Alive | DVD | (24/06/2002) from £5.49   |  Saving you £9.50 (63.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The director of Dead or Alive, Takashi Miike, made his name on the international scene with Audition, a chilling psychological thriller that builds from a quiet start towards a prolonged torture sequence almost too unbearable to watch. But such deliberate pacing isn't typical of Miike, whose movies often assault the viewer with an onslaught of slam-bang action that makes John Woo look like Eric Rohmer. Dead or Alive, his most successful cops-vs-yakuza thriller to date, kicks off with six non-stop minutes of machine gun-paced violence, sex and slaughter, all set to a pounding heavy-metal beat. Thereafter things calm down a little, though not much. Given Miike's penchant for murky, livid-toned visuals and skewed camera angles, it's not always too easy to work out exactly who's doing what to whom, but the general outline's clear enough. The Tokyo underworld is being torn apart by a turf war between the yakuza gangs and the invading Chinese triads. Ambitious yakuza member Ryuichi isn't above playing both sides off against each other in his bid for power, while police detective Jojima, himself none too scrupulous in his methods, is out to destroy the gangs. Into this conventional plot framework Miike piles enough warped characters and bizarre, twisted happenings to fuel half-a-dozen Tarantino movies, while cheerfully borrowing--and inflating--key moments from such hard-boiled gangster-noirs as The Big Heat and Kiss Me Deadly. One character deep-fries his own hand, a stripper is drowned in a paddling-pool filled with her own excrement, and the literally apocalyptic finale, the showdown to end all showdowns, will leave you gasping. The appallingly prolific Miike, who regularly makes about five movies a year, has since directed two sequels--the first only three months after the original.--Philip Kemp

• Dead or Alive Trilogy | DVD | (27/03/2017) from £8.50   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Beginning with an explosive, six-minute montage of sex, drugs and violence, and ending with a phallus-headed battle robot taking flight, Takashi Miike's unforgettable Dead or Alive Trilogy features many of the director's most outrageous moments set alongside some of his most dramatically moving scenes. Made between 1999 and 2002, the Dead or Alive films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terrible of Japanese cinema, yet also one of its most talented and innovative filmmakers. In Dead or Alive, tough gangster Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) and his ethnically Chinese gang make a play to take over the drug trade in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by massacring the competition. But he meets his match in detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), who will do everything to stop them. Dead or Alive 2: Birds casts Aikawa and Takeuchi together again, but as new characters, a pair of rival yakuza assassins who turn out to be childhood friends; after a botched hit, they flee together to the island where they grew up, and decide to devote their deadly skills to a more humanitarian cause. And in Dead or Alive: Final, Takeuchi and Aikawa are catapulted into a future Yokohama ruled by multilingual gangs and cyborg soldiers, where they once again butt heads in the action-packed and cyberpunk-tinged finale to the trilogy. Each of them unique in theme and tone, the Dead or Alive films showcase Miike at the peak of his strengths, creating three very distinct movies connected only by their two popular main actors, each film a separate yet superb example of crime drama, character study, and action filmmaking. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High Definition digital transfers of all three films Original stereo audio Optional English subtitles for all three films New interview with actor Riki Takeuchi New interview with actor Sho Aikawa New interview with producer and screenwriter Toshiki Kimura New audio commentary for Dead or Alive by Miike biographer Tom Mes Archive interviews with cast and crew Archive making-of featurettes for DOA2: Birds and DOA: Final Original theatrical trailers for all three films Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the films by Kat Ellinger

• Dead Or Alive - Final | DVD | (28/05/2007) from £6.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (114.45%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Set in a post apocalyptic Yokohama where the population is kept under rigid control by a half crazed mayor Riki Takeuchi is a hard boiled cop and Show Aikawa a mellowed out drifter that hooks up with a gang of rebels. When the gang kidnap Takeuchi's son the wheels are set in motion that leads to an inevitable showdown.

• Yo-Yo Girl Cop | DVD | (22/09/2008) from £19.24   |  Saving you £-14.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Recruited by a clandestine police organisation K (played by J-Pop Sensation Aya Matsuura) must stop a plot by student radicals to create anarchy in Japan. Armed with a hi-tech steel yo-yo and a new name she must infiltrate an elite high school to find the terrorists. However she finds an even more sinister plan is about to unfold

• Deadly Outlaw Rekka | DVD | (22/11/2010) from £8.08   |  Saving you £11.91 (147.40%)   |  RRP £19.99

  From cult director Takashi Miike (Audition Ichi the Killer) comes this fast paced black humoured Yakuza movie. Following the death of his boss Kunisada (Riki Takeuchi - Dead or Alive Battle Royale 2) embarks upon a journey of revenge against the rival gang who ordered the hit. However all is not how it seems as Kunisada uncovers the truth behind the shady deals that exist within his own clan. Pursued by two hit men Kunisada finds himself both hunter and the hunted as cross and double cross leads to murder mayhem and a bazooka! Cut to the psychedelic prog rock album Satori by Flower Travellin' Band Deadly Outlaw Rekka is a sensational ride with the modern Yakuza and features an astonishing performance by Takeuchi as well as an appearance by the legendary Sonny Chiba (The Street Fighter Kill Bill).

• Big Man Japan | DVD | (21/09/2009) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Dai Nipponjin lives at home alone apart from his cat but with a reality tv show following his every move. Set out as a documentary Big Man Japan follows Dai Nipponjin as he goes about his everyday boring life. However he has an important role in society to transform into a 30 foot-tall giant and defend Tokyo from the various monsters that try to attack it. A surreal and fantastically weird action/comedy in which director Hitoshi Matsumoto offers a refreshing change in the monster movie genre.

• The Yakuza Way | DVD | (17/06/2002) from £6.25   |  Saving you £1.74 (21.80%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Kanuma a member of a Japanese gang and his friend are set to smuggle a shipment of cocaine back to Japan. En-route Kanuma persuades his girlfriend to smuggle the drugs as she is a flight attendant. But the girl is killed and the drugs stolen. Now Kanuma must face a double-crossing partner and a world of corruption to avenge a death and retrieve the drugs...

• Dead Or Alive 2 | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £8.49   |  Saving you £6.50 (43.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  An off-the-cuff Japanese gangster movie with an absurdist streak that shades into surrealism, Dead or Alive 2 isn't thrown by its brief to sequelise a film that ended not only with the deaths of its lead characters but the destruction of Japan. Takashi Miike--the prolific auteur whose best-known film is the atypically considered Audition--brings back his lead actors in different roles and spins off another strange shaggy dog tale. The film starts out with a Yakuza vs Triads gang war in the offing, then sidesteps into "'Beat"' Miike territory as a couple of hit-men who meet when they turn up for the same assassination turn out to be childhood friends and enjoy a nostalgic wallow as they return to the orphanage where they met, re-encounter other old pals and even stand in for some injured actors putting on a play for the children. White-suited and terminally ill Sawada (Riki Takeuchi) and bleached blond and Hawaiian-shirted Otamoko (Sho Aikawa) get back to gunplay, committing contract murders and funnelling the profits into third world charities, which earns them occasional angel-wings or transformations back into innocent children. In constant danger of collapse, the film keeps pulling surprises: txt msg-addicted killers, an animated diagram of bullet trajectories through an unfortunate dwarf's brain. The first film blew up the country because it couldn't think of an ending, and this also has a lot of trouble signing off, with protracted deaths and redemptions for the heroes. Miike alternates clumsiness and confusion with exciting and powerful cinema. --Kim Newman

• Mafia Family Yanagawa - Part 1 | DVD | (18/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Renowned street thug Jiro Yanagawa is released from prison in Shimonoseki Japan's Kyushu region. Bailed out before his partner in crime Koichiro Tachikawa Yanagawa enters the notorious Yoshimizu Yakuza family only to bust out and return to Osaka to launch a bloody territory war with his own newly-formed clan against the Devils Dragons. ""If you want to rise to power you have to steal from the rich!"" became his mantra... No one in Japan is unfamiliar with this blood-soaked true s

• Dead Or Alive Trilogy Box Set | DVD | (28/05/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Dead Or Alive (2000): Welcome to Shinjuku - city of darkness and corruption and the setting for this stunning movie by Japanese director Takashi Miike. Here rapid-fire shoot-outs and twisted acts of perverse violence provide the backdrop for a vicious war between the Japanese Yakuza and the Chinese Triads and make for one of the most dizzying and spectacular openings ever committed to film. Ryuichi is a gangster who is driven by a desire for power and the memory of his deprived childhood. His younger brother Toji has just returned from studying in the U.S. Between them they are about to learn some harsh lessons about life on the wrong side of the law. Meanwhile Detective Jojima finds himself drawn deeper into the world of the Yakuza as he continues to make dirty deals he hopes will help raise the money to pay for his daughter's life-saving operation. Uncompromising and fearlessly original Takashi's 'Dead Or Alive' takes a mind-bending journey into the dark and twisted world of ruthless gangsters dealers strippers and hookers... Dead Or Alive 2: Birds (2000): With Dead or Alive the extraordinarily gifted and prolific Miike Takashi created one of the most extreme and visually stunning films of his career. With Dead or Alive 2 he pushes the boundaries further than ever before. When Otamoko (Sho Aikawa) is hired to assassinate a ruthless gangster he is surprised to find a mysterious gunman make the hit before he gets the chance to pull the trigger. Deciding to take the money for the job he failed to complete Otamoko flees the city with Japanese Yakuza and the Chinese Triads hot on his trail. Hiding out on the island where he grew up he runs into the man who killed his target; an old friend named Sawada (Riki Takeuchi). Together they plan to use their shooting skills to rid the earth of evil and set out to hit the gang bosses and drug dealers who make the world a worse place. Dead Or Alive: Final (2002): Set in a post apocalyptic Yokohama where the population is kept under rigid control by a half crazed mayor Riki Takeuchi is a hard boiled cop and Show Aikawa a mellowed out drifter that hooks up with a gang of rebels. When the gang kidnap Takeuchi's son the wheels are set in motion that leads to an inevitable showdown.