Every source I've seen describes Yakuza Apocalypse as an action film. This must mean that my initial thought to categorize it as a parody comedy is inaccurate. So what is it then? An incomprehensible tale that seems to halfheartedly say one thing until it devolves into absolute madness and then just ends. I kind of hated it.
Beloved Yakuza crime boss Genyō Kamiura (Lily Franky) is the idol of Kageyama (Hayato Ichihara) and secretly, a vampire that drinks the blood of criminals. When a gunslinging priest (Ryushin Tei) and an assassin (Yayan Ruhian as Mad-Dog) decapitate Kamiura, he uses the last of his strength to turn Kageyama into a Yakuza Vampire. Unfortunately, he only learns the rules of his new condition after biting a civilian and unleashing a plague upon Japan. Meanwhile, the priest is not done yet and summons the ultimate terrorist (Masanori Mimoto) to finish what he started.
At first, I thought this was prolific director Takashi Miike lampooning Yakuza films. We’re told Kamiura has kept the big companies and chain stores out of the city and that he instructs his men only to harm other criminals. This makes him a hero of the people because Yakuza gangsters are so cool. Kageyama thinks so. All his life, that’s all he’s wanted to be but he’s never been able to get the trademark tattoos. When Kamiura bites him and transforms him into a Yakuza vampire, he becomes the real deal but in time, vampirism is rampant. Teachers, high-school girls, nurses, police officers are all becoming Yakuza vampires! Where is this going? Is it a lamentation that the criminal identity has become meaningless today, that it no longer inspires fear?
I'd say yes, if the idea went somewhere but in-depth analysis has no place in a film like this. Ambitious criminal Masaru (Makoto Sakaguchi) starts leaking brain matter out her ears like a hose, we get psychedellic gardens, martial arts battles between people in the worst monster costumes you’ve ever seen, and more. It should be so nutty it becomes awesome but it isn’t. All of the characters are so flat you don’t care about them and the incomprehensible non-logic means you have no idea what you should be paying attention to, what’s there just to be weird or if anything means anything at all. Did we just witness a rape scene? Who cares? Not the people who made this film. If they did, they might’ve tried harder to give us some convincing special effects or believeable performances. When you don’t speak Japanese and you can still tell the actors are struggling with their lines, you’ve experienced a badness so intense it transcends language.
The only thing that keeps you watching Yakuza Apocalypse is that something will make all of this click together. Is Miike saying the Yakuza are the vampires of Japan as they bleed the population dry? Does he suggest we’ve become infatuated with people who should be hated like we have with vampires? Your guess is as good as mine. The non-ending doesn't help. Abruptly cutting off your story can work - sometimes. Here it feels as though everyone got bored and said “let’s just end it here and move onto the next thing. It’ll be too late for them to get their money back after nearly two hours”. That’s another mark against this picture. It’s way, WAY too long.
Yakuza Apocalypse is little more than a mad-lib of supernatural action. Ideas are tossed in at random. Few of them pay off. You’ll retain nothing from the experience and will feel like you wasted your time. (Original Japanese with English subtitles, April 2, 2021)
workplace colleagues but it's a trio that consists of two rival real estate agents, a newbie real estate agent they both accidentally come to care for, and chaotic sibling vibes all around.