Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1997
Rainy Dog
Buy Rainy Dog now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
is a 1997 Japanese film directed by Takashi Miike, completely set and filmed in Taipei, Taiwan. Although the movie contains a fair amount of controversial material, the overall theme of the movie concerns the unlikely relationships formed between a hitman and his girlfriend / hooker and son.
This movie is the second part of the 'Black Society' trilogy.
Plot
The film begins with the main character, Yuuji, being fired from his yakuza syndicate. Soon he finds work for another boss solely as a pay-per-hit assassin, killing members of other syndicates. His life starts to become more complicated when an ex-girlfriend or hooker drops his son off at his house. His son, who is mute, begins to follow him, where the boy watches him shoot a man who is having lunch with his wife and infant son. Afterward, the boy follows Yuuji to a whorehouse where he waits outside. While waiting, he eats food from the garbage and befriends a puppy who is chained in the alley.
The prostitute (Lilly) and Yuuji develop a live-in relationship (possibly by contract with her procurer). Things get much more complicated when the brother of Yuuji's recent victim, a lawyer, approaches his brother's yakuza syndicate to request heading the revenge attack on Yuuji. Circumstances revolving around one of his contract killings force the three of them to flee, taking temporary refuge on a beach. While there, Lilly teaches Yuuji's son to read and write his name, 'Chen'. The mark's brother discovers the relationship between Lilly and Yuuji and augments her website to offer a reward for anyone with information about her. Yuuji, his son, and Lilly are on the way out of town when Yuuji calls his new boss to get a passport.
Yuuji's new boss knows about the reward and calls the mark's brother, despite the fact that he hired Yuuji. Yuuji can tell by the sound of his boss's voice that he has been betrayed, so he leaves their current location and seek refuge at the apartment of one of Lilly's friends: a trans woman named Sandy. While browsing her website on her friend's computer, Lilly discovers the reward offering on her website, informs Yuuji and the two begin to wonder where her friend, Sandy, went to. They spot her outside, waiting nervously downstairs and realize she has turned them in for money.
Yuuji sends Lilly and his son together to a train station and gets revenge on his boss - splitting them up; but before they can make it there they are captured by the lawyer (the mark's brother) and Lilly is killed. Yuuji faces off with the lawyer, but gets knocked out due to a distraction by Chen after pumping a few bullets into Yuuji - which makes him appear dead. As Yuuji and Chen rejoice, an old acquaintance, a low quality and comical hitman, appears and kills Yuuji. After the hitman leaves, the lawyer reawakens and gives Chen a short speech, telling him if he wanted to seek revenge in the future, that he will be waiting.
Cast
Release
The film was released on 28 June 1997.
Reception
'Sight & Sound' described the film as a "relatively subdued effort" from Miike, whose plot was "Stretched somewhat thin over 95 minutes". The review noted "moments of melancholy lyricism, but Miike is rigorously unsentimental in his approach to the father/son relationship - which barely figures until the closing scenes."
Notes
Buy Rainy Dog now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1997