RAINY DOG
Director: Takashi Miike Run Time: 95 min. Release Year: 1997 Language: Japanese
Starring: Blackie Ko Shou-Liang, Gao Ming-Chun, Jianqin He, Show Aikawa, Xianmei Chen
“Not only the definitive bad-parenting movie, but also very likely the coolest rain-soaked lonely hitman movie ever made.” — TIME OUT
After years working almost exclusively in Japans’s “V-cinema” (direct-to-video) world, Takashi Miike announced himself as a world-class filmmaking talent with this trio of crazy, thematically-connected, character-centric crime stories about violence, the underworld of Japanese society, families both real and surrogate, and the possibly hopeless task of finding one’s place in the world. His first works made specifically for theatrical release, the “Black Society Trilogy” (SHINJUKU TRIAD SOCIETY, RAINY DOG and LEY LINES) was the beginning of Miike’s career of international renown. RAINY DOG, shot entirely in Taiwan, is about an exiled yakuza (Show Aikawa, DEAD OR ALIVE) who finds himself saddled with a son he never knew he had. And a price on his head, after the Chinese gang he works for decides to turn on him.