21. Young Thugs: Innocent Blood (1997)
“Young Thugs: Innocent Blood” is a story about growing into adulthood and the role of memories in the choices of our lives. Supported by a great cast and solid cinematography, this film offers a different look at Takashi Miike, a worthwhile diversion from the more extreme cinema he has become famous for in the course of his career. (Rouven Linnarz)
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22. Ambition Without Honor 2 (1997)
The acting is relatively good, with Hideki Sone as Tetsuya and Kojiro Shimizu as Kitahara playing their parts with a very fitting coolness, while Hirotaro Honda as the rival leader steals the show with his weird perversity. “Ambition without Honor 2” is not a bad film, and is definitely better than the Maki ones, but still feels a bit subpar, particularly since Miike, by 1997, had already started on the path that would make him an international sensation. (Panos Kotzathanasis)
23. Blues Harp (1998)
“Blues Harp” is one of Miike's more melancholic features, one which is unjustly overlooked when talking about the director as it offers not only a valuable insight on how fluent Miike has become in the language of the medium but also on the versatility of him as an artist. Featuring great performances, a wonderful soundtrack as well as a brilliant collaboration between editing, camera and music, “Blues Harp” is a recommendation to those film fans eager to see the director doing something other than his “usual” excess. It is a film about the outcasts, those left behind and ignored, those who find refuge in the sombre tunes of the harmonica, a soothing melody lighting the dark streets of Tokyo. (Rouven Linnarz)
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24. The Bird People in China (1998)
The special thing about “The Bird People in China” is the critique of the modern, Japanese society. Japan seems to be different. Everything is faster than in the rest of the world. People start to suffer under a hectic lifestyle. China is, therefore, a source of recreation and is presented as an untouched reservoir, which helps the Japanese characters to find a way back to their true inner self. The movie underlines this on many levels. Light, editing, costumes. The modern Japan is thwarted by the traditional China. (Alexander Knoth)
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25. Andromedia (1998)
The plot gets pretty off the rails and Miike puts in some crazy idea and images. There is plenty of the typical off beat humor that undercuts the melodramatic parts. Also, the light and cinematography are full of creativity and are way beyond the concept of a 90-minute music video (which was probably the original idea of the film company). (Alexander Knoth)
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26. Young Thugs: Nostalgia (1998)
In conclusion, “Young Thugs: Nostalgia” is a film about childhood, about looking back on the past and a vision of the future, one of the individual as well as the nation questioning which one might be the more honest. Within the body of work of Takashi Miike, it is an unusually underrated film, predicting movies such as “Blues Harp” and “The Bird People in China” as well as the many child characters in the films of Miike. It is a film about an era during which it was not important what was there, but what you could see for yourself even if the others could not. As many stress the excessive and the crazy in Miike's work, one should not ignore the touching and heartfelt portrayal of childhood and growing up he has managed to out on screen. Both “Young Thugs” films are great examples for that facet of his talent. (Rouven Linnarz)
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27. Tennen Shojo Man (1999)
“Tennen Shojo Man” was a strangely successful TV product of 1999 that served as the inspiration for a TV movie follow-up “Tennen shojo Man next: Yokohama hyaku-ya hen”, released in the same year. The latter differs strongly from the original story as a completely fresh chapter of Man's fight against a different type of evil. Both the series and the film are adaptations of a popular manga by Tetsuya Koshiba. (Marina Richter)
28. Tennen shojo Man next: Yokohama hyaku-ya hen / Man, A Natural Girl Next (1999)
Based on Koshiba Tetsuya's yet another “look-at-the-busty-slim-teenage-girls-in tight-shirts-and-short-skirts” popular manga comic series, Miike Takashi's TV movie in 2 parts “Yuya of Yokohama: Tennen Shojo Man Next” is a typical child of the 1990's with lots of cheese topping for teenagers drawn to romanticised vampire flics. It's a compressed vampire boy-meets-girl-and-changes-forever narrative, usually condemned to countless televised seasons of series called something like “The Bite of Love” or turned into a franchise as terrifying as “The Twilight Saga”. Luckily enough, it's a Takashi Miike film, and although half-heartedly directed, “Man, A Natural Girl” contains typical elements of his films as we know and cherish them. One of them is the twisted sense of humor, dry and hilarious, sprinkled all over the story-line like a fine layer of sugar powder. The scenes in which a gang of vampire girls cover their ears in horror when the music changes from the Japanese indie rock to a romantic ballad, or when Yuuya (Takashi Nagayama), his soul being saved by the main female hero Man (Ayana Sakai), gets catapulted into heaven nailed on the giant illuminated cross, make it worth riding the ride. (Marina Richter)
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29. Silver (1999)
With an extremely low-budget, V-cinema production, one could not expect too much from the cinematography or the special effects (the latter are pretty awful), although Yasuhiko Mitsui does his best to portray the many different settings with a trashy sleaziness that fits the general aesthetics of the movie. (Panos Kotzathanasis)
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30. Audition (1999)
“Audition” is a film about romance and love, about extremes and honesty in a relationship. While remaining a sensationalist angle, the acting, especially of the two leads, the visuals and the direction define a unique viewing experience, unwatchable for some but in many ways more truthful than any mainstream romantic movie. “Audition” is in many people's eyes one of the best accomplishments of its director in a body of work which now includes more than 100 titles. It shows the true nature of its creator, one who, despite all the extreme imagery, has continuously presented himself as a true romantic. (Rouven Linnarz)
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