Its been a while since I have watched a Miike Takashi movie. Laplace's Witch is one of the worst movies ever and the last third of First Love was crap. Undercover Agent Reiji is the first movie in the Mole Song Trilogy. Its a Trilogy series which means that it was successful enough to have two sequels which means it has a chance to be decent right?
The main reason I took a chance on Undercover Agent Reiji is that it was written by Kudo Kankuro. In the jdorama world, everything Kudo Kankuro touches turns into gold. Even when I don't like everything, I can see purpose in his writing. I thought there is no way Miike Takashi can fuck this up.
Turns out I was wrong. Undercover Agent Reiji is the exact same yakuza slapstick schtick that he did for the Ryu ga Gotoku movie, Yakuza Apocalypse and the last third of First Love. Crazy yakuza doing crazy slapstick violence with story barely held together. This time the story is a policeman Reiji is fired so that he can a mole in the Sukiyakai.
I did not find anything remotely funny in Agent Reiji. Except for the mole song which are the rules about being an undercover mole. It is the best thing about the movie and everything else is boring craziness. Everything feels so tired and I could not feel any Kudo Kankuroness from the script and wish they had made a musical instead.
Maybe I have gotten too old since I became a fan of Miike all those years ago watching Ichi the Killer it he feels like a director who keeps recycling old material but can't make a decent movie anymore. No more Zebraman, Audition and Taiyo no Kizu. The last good Miike movie was Gyakuten Saiben/Ace Attorney and Shield of Straw.
But what do I know? Undercover Agent Reiji must have done well in the Japanese box office and many big names are in this movie so lots of people must like it. If you like unhinged Miike doing whatever he wants, The Mole Song is for you. For me it is sad that a director who has made at least 5 must watch Japanese movies can make so many bad ones. Do no watch unless you are a Miike aficionado.
As far as I can remember, the second movie(the Hong Kong one?) is more entertaining than the first one, I couldn't remember much on what happened in the first movie.
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