The much beloved “Mad Max: Fury Road” may have technically played at the Cannes Film Festival, but there was at least one other film on the Croisette that was true and proudly glorious genre fun: Takashi Miike’s utterly bananas “Yakuza Apocalypse.” A new red-band trailer for the film has been released online and trust us, you’re going to want to see this for yourself.
The trailer itself doesn’t even last a full two minutes and yet features more insane and ridiculous imagery and action than most films manage in their entire runtime. The basic gist of the story is this: after beloved Yakuza Boss Kamiura is decapitated and his severed head bites his most trusted henchman, that young man gains his Boss’s vampiric powers and goes seeking revenge. Oh, and the Apocalypse is coming with a kung-fu frog as its herald. Plus, Mad Dog from “The Raid” is in it too.
As our review from Cannes said, “It may be a hugely tacky, cartoony balloon pit of a film, but when every single element is dialed up to eleven and you can’t go thirty seconds without another three-way face-off between OTT, OMG and WTF, it starts to achieve a maximalist artistry that almost feels avant-garde.” So yeah, we gave it an A-.
You can witness the madcap glory of “Yakuza Apocalypse” for yourself when it opens in the U.S. on October 9th. Watch the trailer below to prepare yourself for what you’re in for.
