If you think Miike Takashi only makes whacked out over the top, sicko, surreal gorefest horror shenanigans such as Dead Or Alive, Audition and Ichi The Killer, think again. Takashi Miike also makes whacked out, over the top, surreal, horror comedy musicals as well. I left out sicko and gorefest from the latter description as compared to Miike’s other films, as there are only a paltry 4 deaths.

The plot is pretty straightforward. Poppy Katakuri gets the
push from his job as a shoe salesman and so buys a guesthouse in the
country and drags along the whole family to help out. Unfortunately the
first few guests die in very bizarre circumstances. Poppy Katakuri
thinks this will be bad for business. He decides to bury the bodies in
the woods out back so that he can live out his dream of blissful family
harmony. How Takashi handles the corpse removal is not straightforward.
He hammers two or three genres together that simply do not go together
and shock of shocks, makes ‘em work. It’s like Shallow Grave meets the The Walton’s with the musical element of The Jungle Book. There’s also a massive nod to The Sound Of Music, indeed the UK and US cover of the DVD re-creates the cover from said film.

Now for the musical numbers. Don’t get me wrong, they’re bloody awful but they’re a total piss take of either:

1. Those Disney cartoons like The Jungle Book where when the
   singing starts, all kinds of creatures appear (in one song it’s the
   zombie re-incarnations a la Thriller of the people they’ve found dead
   in the guest house) and general all-round surreality ensues for the
   duration and then it all suddenlyl disappears leaving the actors as
   they were before the song to carry on with the dialogue.
2. The Rogers & Hammerstein thing where all the emotions get
   expressed through singing between one character and another or even
   just to themselves. You know, “I Am 16 Going On Seventeen” type o’
   thang
3. Some Bollywood-esque family sing-and-dance-along.

And as such work perfectly for the film.

There’s a love struck sister, a brother out of prison, a barking
mad granddad (who chuck logs at crows with alarming accuracy), mum,
dad, a Japanese guy who claims to be the son of HRH Queen Elizabeth’s
illegitimate half sister while at the same time a US air force pilot
(yes he IS a con artist) and the daughter of the single-mum sister, all
of who get their 15 minutes of singing fame. They even go
karaoke-tastic at one point asking the viewer to join in with the
singing though you’ll have to be a linguistic smarty-pants like Jaquay and be able to speak Japanese for this bit.

Zombies doing song and dance routines, bodies getting buried in
the back garden, people turning into plasticine for no apparent reason,
crow hating granddads and Japanese Royalty/USAF impersonators might
sound like a whole load of horse shit, but believe me, The Happiness of the Katakuris
is a great movie. I laughed pretty much all the way through. Sometimes
at the humour, sometimes at the sheer insanity of what was going on. It
makes an episode of Neat & Tidy seem positively normal.

Sure the whole film a total theft/pisstake movie with so many of
its parts lampooning other films, (including Miike’s own), but so what?
Whatever he seems to do, Takashi suckers you in to his world of the
bizarre. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you’ll spew you dinner onto
your lap with repulsion and sometimes you’ll laugh whilst spewing your
dinner onto your lap with repulsion. Refreshingly in this film he
leaves the shocking gore at home and re-creates the nastiness
(particularly the beginning) through Playdough characters which seem to
morph in and out of their real life counter parts and as such don’t
challenge your stomach in the same way that the same scene shot with
real characters would. I’m pretty sure this tactic was also used to
keep the SFX budget low, especially toward the end, but it doesn’t
detract from the film in any way. Super gore would have just spoilt it.

While this isn’t quite as good as the wire-sawesome Audition, The Happiness of the Katakuris is still a great watch for anyone who’s a tad sick and tired of the
same old same old. This is about the only Takashi film you wont have to
hide from you’re family because they would think you’re some
weirdo/serial killer/sadist sort of freak. They’ll still think you’re
insane, just not a serial killer.

Ruthless Ratings:

• Overall: 7
• Acting: 6/7 overall, 8 for Poppy Katakuri
• Singing Ability: 0
• Story: Story?
• Direction: 8

Special Ruthless Ratings:

• Number of pseudo-intellectual tossers who won’t accept The Happiness of the Katakuris for what it is: Lots
• Number of time you laugh at jokes way before anyone else got them: 8
• Number of times you realized only your imaginary friends were watching the movie with you: 2
• Number of times you had to shout, “The skiiny girl is under the dead sumo!”: 1
• Number of Miike films you’ve seen: 6
• Number of bad Miike films you’ve seen: 0
• Number of films Miike will make in 2004: 4
• How hard does this make your three-inch dick: Very, very hard

Filmmakers have been posed a question for many years. How do you brutally murder 42 mouthy and unruly teenagers in a film and not cause the biggest public outcry since the Rodney King “asked for it”. Easy. Instead of having some adult murder them, which would cause a bigger uproar than Natural Born Killers by a factor of 10, get the kids to kill each other. Fucking genius. Now this brings up it’s own moral questions but what the fuck?

Here’s the deal, It’s Japan sometime in the near future, the economy if fucked no hope etc and as a result kids have become so disrespectful to their elders that the powers that be pass a law called Battle Royale. Once a year, one class of 9th graders is selected at random then drugged and taken to an Island. The kids are then forced to kill each other. Last one standing gets to go free. The sucker punch is that they’ve all got neckbands on which explode if

a)If they try to take them off
b) Try to escape
c) The time limit of 3 days expires and more than one person is left alive.
d) If you stray into one of the designated danger zones.

Always a winning ploy, I think you’ll find!

http://ruthlessreviews.com/pics/battleroyale2.gif

Their old teacher gets to oversee proceedings and happily tells them who’s died and when over the islands Tannoy system.

Now, you’ve got to remember that there’s 42 young actors here so some of the acting is a bit on the ropey side (particularly the psycho kid who if he actually shot like that couldn’t hit a cows arse with a banjo) and some of the dialogue, particularly during the “love” scenes is a little bit cheesy but so fuck. 42 teenagers, shot, pummelled, poisoned, hacked to death so basically who cares.

People will say it steals from Lord Of The Flies, and various other films but my favourite directors, The Coen Brothers are the biggest burglars of all time, so I don’t really care. You’ll probably read other reviews that contain phrases like “Damning Indictment Of Society” but all you need to know is the kids buy it, BIG TIME.

This film contains one of my all time top ten ways I don’t want to bite the dust. It probably contains one of yours aswell.

While not as funny as Series 7 (although the training video section is highly amusing) it is more bloodthirsty and out of the two I would say I preferred Battle Royale (just) but if you watched Series 7 and liked it then there’s a good chance you’ll like this.

Ruthless Ratings

• Story – 10 Teenagers Die!!!
• Direction – 6 or 7
• Acting – 3′s through 7′s and 9 for the Teacher guy
• Number of times you wished it was a load of Lardy assed burger munching
• Yankee brats getting ruthlessly fucked over – 86
• Number Of Times You Ignored The Bad Acting – 10
• Number Of Times You Wished Battle Royale Was Coming To A School Near You – 666

According To Some Guy In Britain

These days I’m a recovering metaholic so my knowledge of recent metal is very limited so here’s my ageing top 20.

20: Saxon The Eagle Has Landed (Live)

Obligatory bad perms and spandex, ugly bass players, guitarists with bad mullets and tashes. The quintessential British metal band.

19: Megadeth Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?

Yes I know Dave Mustaine gives ginger people a bad name but they did release a couple of good LP’s. The title track rocks. Dave was in Metallica once, don’t you know?

18: Judas Priest Defenders Of The Faith

Definitely the best Gay metal band ever. Ever gayer than those really gay people in The Decline Of Western Civilisation (which is possibly funnier than Spinal Tap cos it’s for real) Beats all the other Priest LP’s cos it’s got “Freewheel Burning” on it.

17: Angel Witch Angel Witch

I bet you’d forgot all about these fuckers. Not me. Drummer Dave Hogg (Dayvog)? Was voted most inappropriately dressed drummer in a band who sing about witches in 1980.

16: Iron Maiden Iron Maiden

Fuck Bruce Dickinson, scag-head Dianno was always the best. Prowler, Running Free, Phantom Of The Opera, Sanctuary, need I go on?

15: Voivod Killing Technology

Holy Shit these guys kicked more butt than a world champion butt kicker in the butt kicking Olympics. They also had the best logo of any band ever except D.R.I

14: Voivod Dimension Hatross

To omit this would be a cardinal sin!

13: Anthrax Spreading The Disease

How can you look at Scott “Not” Ian and not immediately love Anthrax? They introduced the baseball cap to England. We passed on the Indian Head-dress though. A bit overstated for our tastes. Pass the brain and kidney pie?

12: Venom From Hell To The Unknown

These guys were THE blackest metal band ever. I remember seeing them on TV once and this guy in the crowd tried to grab Cronos’s mike stand so he booted his head into row Z. I saw him in a club in Newcastle and kept out of his way cos though he’s only 4 feet tall he’s muscley as fuck and looks so mean he’d make Aleister Crowley shit in his pants. I taped this LP for 4 people in my class and every one of their tapes chewed up and destroyed their cassette decks. SATAN!!!!

11: Slayer Reign In Blood

These guys took up the mantle from Venom as the baddest assed muthas on the planet. I saw a site where you can download the intro to Reign In Blood for your phone the other day. Guess who’s phone wasn’t compatible?

10: Metallica Ride The Lightning

You could tell they were building up to the big one with this. A bit flashier than the first one as Lars actually learnt another drum fill!!! For Whom The Bell Tolls and Creeping Death, Oh Yes, Oh Yes!!!!!!

9: Motorhead No Sleep Till Hammersmith

Basically you were nothing in the Metal world until you’d played the Hammy Odeon. The classic line-up of Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Filthy Phil. Contains the best version of Overkill in my humble opinion. Jonny would swap this with AC/DC, but only just.

8: AC/DC If You Want Blood Live

Yes technically a rock LP but this time I insist.

7: Metallica Master Of Puppets

This LP still rocks today. While good for Jason Newsteads career, Cliff Burton dying was the worst thing to happen to metal since Dio.

6: Black Sabbath Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Best

5: Black Sabbath Sabotage

Metal

4: Black Sabbath Volume 4

Band

3: Black Sabbath Master Of Reality

In The

2: Black Sabbath Paranoid

World

1: Black Sabbath Black Sabbath

Eveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!!!!!

And Only 1/6th Of You Yanks Have Passports!!

Well thank fuck for that is all I can say. Last year my fellow countrymen got it in the neck, but this time it’s you fucking Yanks.

I can guarantee that the person seated at the next restaurant table doesn’t really want to listen your banal drawl throughout the course of their meal. I, sitting 7 tables away, DO NOT WANT TO LISTEN TO YOUR BANAL DRAWL THROUGHOUT THE COURSE OF MY MEAL. For fuck sake stop shouting! Do you guys have built in larynx-amplifiers or what? It wouldn’t be so bad if you were saying anything that was half interesting. “I’ve been to Florence, oooo so have I, have you been to Berlin? I’ve been to Berlin, ooo yes I did Berlin last year, next we’re coming over for two weeks and doing London, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Prague, Venice, Vienna and Rome.…… On and fucking on for a whole hour! Sorry no desert or coffee for me pal, I’m off. Just what fuck do you think it is that you’ve done in theses places? Jack fucking shit, that’s what. Jonny’s done Prague, but he spent two fucking months there and I’d imagine could have happily stayed another two. I worked in Holland for a month but haven’t even come anywhere close to getting around it all, and that was in a car that regularly did 140mph.

Done? Done my arse!

Three couples came and sat down and after about 30 seconds, looked at the Yanks, rolled their eyes and legged it sharpish [Ed Note: We feel fairly certain that legged it sharpish means they left].

And why can’t you just order some food without the need for the Spanish Inquifuckingsition? “Is that salmon smoked, is it Scottish or Norwegian salmon, I don’t want it if it’s not smoked salmon. What’s in the salad, does that have smoked salmon, I’ll have that if the salmon is smoked but does it have artichokes in it. I’ll take it if the artichokes have been boiled. How big is the salad?”

What!!!?!!!??
How big is the fucking salad?

The waitress made her hands into roughly the size of the plate it would come on. “Well how big is that?” Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!, and I didn’t even mention that this stupid yank-cow stuck her fucking nose in my wife’s food and without even acknowledging the Mrs. said to her equally dumb friend, “Ooo, maybe I’ll have a pizza.” Five fucking minutes it took to place a simple order for some soup and a salad. You’re that busy fucking talking you wont even taste it anyways, assholes! You might as well order dogshit on toast.

At no time during the course of my holiday did I hear any American say the words “per favore” or “grazie”. That’s please and thank-you by the way.

Wankers.

I’ve saved the best till last though. We were having lunch at this place in Pisa when a bunch of Yanks arrived at the table behind us. Now these weren’t obnoxious brats like in the previous two examples. Me, Mrs B and HALF OF PISA knew they were teachers from some American university. First off, no please or thank-you. Wankers. Then during the 2000 decibel, 3 week long Spanish inquisition of the menu, the struggling waitress said, “I’m really sorry but I don’t speak very much English.” To which the guy replied, “Oh that doesn’t matter” before proceeding to question her for a further five minutes.

Tosser!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I shit you not, by the time they had ordered, we’d had soup, a pizza, a Latte and two ciggy’s and paid the bill. All they got was a god-damned pizza in the en!. Stupid fucking obnoxious Yank-yank septic tanks, and these were supposedly educated examples.

I can already fly a plane, all I need me now is some fucking box cutters. I’m going back to college!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was going to end there but then I saw some whinge by Erich about taxes. Taxes, I’ll give you fucking taxes. Sales tax 7-8%. What the fuck is that to cry about? Everything you buy in the UK is subject to 17.5% sales tax or “VAT” as we call it. That’s right, more than double yours. Cigarettes, $10 for a pack of 20 Marlbros. Hence why me and thousands of others, get illegally imported ‘baccy from Slovinia. These guys can import it, sell it for half the price and still make a profit.

Try buying a fucking car. A 2litre Ford Focus sets you back $13,300 or something. UK price: £11,000 and the fucking exchange rate is nearly 2 bucks to the pound. Petrol here is, and this is no joke, $5.5 for a US Gallon. 33% of my wages get swiftly removed for tax and National Insurance contributions,

This could literally go on forever. Stop whining and start shooting.

B

AC/DC

If You Want Blood… You’ve Got It (Live)

EMI 4 94669 2 0

I’ll leave Sabbath and Zeppelin out of this as for me they’re
simply on a higher plain, but if you ask me what the greatest live rock
album of all time is, there are only two contenders, and one of those
isn’t Frampton Comes Alive. First in the Red Corner, from the land
where people stand upside-down and drink possibly the worst beer on the
planet it’s AC/DC, and in the Blue Corner from the land of the Limey,
the ugliest band in the world, Motorhead. Now Jonny
will probably opt for the latter’s “No Sleep Till Hammersmith” LP and
on some days I would agree with him as this is a mighty fine slab of
vinyl you should definitely own but as it’s the summer and “No
Sleep….” is for me a winter LP I’ll plump for the former.

Now
Motorhead were at the time the loudest and fastest but AC/DC were by
far the dirtiest. Only an Australian (I know he’s technically a
Scotsman) could come out with lyrics like AC/DC’s and get away with it.
I mean can you imagine Jon By Jovi crooning lyrics like

But I Made Her Cry, And I Made her Scream, And I Curdled Her Cream

Like in “The Jack” or could you imagine Nickeltwat
singing about having the best sex they’d ever had with a nineteen stone
woman called Rosie? I think not.

No, this isn’t metal with super flashy guitar solos or fancy drum
fills, but what it is from the word go, simple, honest blues driven
rock music. The riff to “Riff-Raff” is just fantastic and never fails
to get the adrenaline flowing through my veins. I love nothing more
than burning down the motorway and putting this on. The only problem is
I’m having such a good time that I end up going far too fast and
slamming my brakes on when I see the police patrol. It’s not all
fast-paced though, AC/DC love to do their blues thing with the
aforementioned “The Jack” which is surely the finest song about
catching Gonorrhoea ever written.

I suppose I would describe this as un-contrived working mans rock
music. Yes all the favourites are there, Bon’s sing along during “The
Jack”, “Whole Lotta Rosie” is there along with “High Voltage”, Angus’s
trademark solo during “Let There Be Rock”. It’s not surprising in any
way, shape or form, it’s probably more predictable than an episode of Just Shoot Me but unlike David Splayed this is a great, great piece of pure entertainment.

Ruthless Ratings

• Ruthless Rating – 8 “42-39-56″ Points Out Of 10

• Buy Or Burn – Burning in Hell ain’t a bad place to be. After you’ve bought this, of course.

Get Rich Or Die Tryin’

Interscope Records

ASIN: B000084T18

Well we’re supposed to like 50 Cent cos he’s for real; he’s from da street yada yada yada. So fucking what? Fair enough you’ve maybe got more right to talk about this kind of shit than PN News, but is there any chance you could at least do it in some way that is at least halfway interesting? This shit just bores the pants of me.

For a start, most of the songs have about as much creativity as a quadriplegic art class. The song will start with some drumbeat, and then well it just doesn’t stop, no breaks or anything. I’m not even sure if there are actually different beats for each song. If they are different, you’d be hard pressed to notice.

There seems to be no attempt to make the backing track exiting either. Yeah there’s stuff plonked over the beat but that’s just the same thing repeated over and over and over and over get the picture. The music doesn’t seem important at all, its merely there, with ol’ 50 rapping over the top.

Why isn’t rap music producing guys n’ gals who’s voices have at least 1 interesting quality in them. I don’t think 50 Cent uses more than about 4 notes on the whole CD. I’ve listened to this about 3 times now and I barely notice as we move from one track to the next. It’s just a monotonic borefest that I simply tune out after a while. It doesn’t engage me at all, not in the way the guys from Spooks do or even 50 Cent’s mentor Eminem. 50′s tone is about as interesting as my old English Literature teacher’s was when he was droning on about Laurie fucking Lee or somebody for hours and hours on end.

Couldn’t we have MC Tracheotomy or something? Sure that’s very monotonous too, but at least it would be funny. Imagine

Me And Ma Homeys Goin’ Huntin’ For Bitches

We’z Gonna Nail Em So Hard

They’z Gonna Need Stitches

emanating from MC Tracheotomy’s voice box. That I’d pay good money for. Not this drivel. Sure there’s far worse stuff out there. This is no way as bad as R Kelly or some of that shit but it’s far from being excellent either.

I think someone once said, “Don’t Believe The Hype”

Special Ruthless Ratings:

• 3 Dullard Points Out Of 10
• No Of Times You Listened To This CD: 3
• No Of Times This Was Because You Didn’t Realise The CD Had Restarted: 1
• Amount Of Money Wasted On Anaesthetics When They Could Bore People Into A Coma With This CD: $20,000,000
• No Of Films, 50 Cent Will Appear In Next Year: 4