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. In SHINJUKU TRIAD SOCIETY, dirty cop Tatsuhito pursues the gay Chinese warlord Wang through the night world of Shinjuku and over to Taiwan. This is a shocking investigation of a dehumanized society, in which Tatsuhito fights to obtain a glimpse of salvation.