Excellent, smart action film.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Fudoh: The Next Generation is another in a long line of Yakuza films helmed by Takashi Miike. The big difference here is that the principal Yakuza organisation in the film is made up of adolescents and 5-7 year old boys who are just as deadly as their adult rivals.The reigning Nio Yakuza clan is made up of five different families, one of the five heads is Iwao Fudoh, and his first lieutenant his oldest son, Ryu. When Ryu orders one of the rival Yasha organisations hit men killed, thus triggering a full scale war between the Yasha and Nio clans, Iwao is asked to make up for his sons mistake and he does so by decapitating him and presenting the head as compensation to the Nio clan.Upon hearing a noise Iwao's youngest son Riki, awakes and goes to investigate - he stumbles upon the grisly sight of his father beheading his older brother. Cut to ten years later, Riki is now in high school and running an organisation of his own made up of fellow students and a group of little boys. His anger over the death of his brother has not faded in the least and he has plans to wipe out the other four families in the Nio clan and become boss.Fudoh is really a mindblowing spectacle, we are constantly battered with violent and non-PC imagery, beginning with the sight of two five year-old boys coldly assassinating an elderly Yakuza boss. To see young children effortlessly handling 9mm's is somewhat of a shock to our pre-conditioned minds to start with, but when they continue on to calmly blow an old man's brains out you start to get an idea of what is ahead.The next slaying involves a poisoned cup of coffee and literally bucketloads of blood. Another features Riki's female friend and classmate Mika, who works on the side at a sleazy strip joint performing her unique act which consists of shooting sharpened darts out of a blowpipe inserted in her vagina and bursting balloons on the other side of the room, though this night, in-between balloons, she shoots a dart right through a Nio leaders head - in one ear and out the other - the dart sinks into the wall with a piece of brain tissue still attached.Everything about Fudoh is so over-the-top and insanely exaggerated that you seem not to notice that the likelihood of a group of children being at war with the Yakuza is highly improbable. Midway through the film we are shown the children's training camp where we see the kids merrily playing soccer with their English teachers head, this serves again to reinforce the sense of unreality that's at play here. Although, all hyperbole aside, Fudoh also explores the dysfunctional relationship between father and son, a bond so broken down by betrayal and murder that as the two males sit opposite each other eating dinner in silence, each one is plotting a way to execute the other.All in all, if you dig schoolgirl hermaphrodites, friendly giants, lesbian English teachers, vaginal darts and a large helping of blood and black comedy, this a must-see Miike film.

It's my seventh Takashi Miike movie. I recognize the talent of the man, but here i'll make a statement. His pre-Audition era isn't that interesting. His obsession with the Yakuza theme made a lot of his movies look similar in my opinion.But...even if Fudoh is similar to others like Dead Or Alive or Full Metal Yakuza, it has the merit of being treated in an original way. The teenage mafia, trying to take advantage of that innocent image to fight and ultimately kill the bosses of the current mafia brought my attention into this film. Although I felt this movie was just a series of generic killings and gross sexuality scenes (well, the hermaphrodite scene is something), the whole violent teenagers and influencing alpha personalities things are yet interesting.Miike shows glimpses of his cinematographical talent in this movie, but the best was still to be seen.Don't take this too seriously though, i'm severely bored with the gangster movie genre and I'll move on to something else pretty soon. This movie was mildly entertaining, mildly violent and gross for a Miike and mildly well shoot. It has no real flaw and a few good surprises, so if you like the director, well...you can give it a try

Fed up with the mainstream, uninspired Hollywood action movies? Hey, I don't blame you… Therefore, I strongly suggest turning your head towards the Asian film industry and search for Takashi Miike in particular. Miike is a very busy and ambitious movie-freak who already surprised the world with a couple of ultra-violent (on the edge of ‘sick') and hard-boiled thrillers, such as the ‘Dead or Alive'-series, Itchi the Killer and Visitor Q. But this film – Fudô – remains his very best achievement in my opinion. Simply put, Fudô is action from start to finish…stuffed with dared ideas, taboos and some of the darkest humor you'll ever see. It's about a young and good-looking boy who single-handedly wipes out the top of the Japanese drugs-mafia. With a little help from his classmates and a wide imagination, he avenges his brother's dead. A strong stomach and an eccentric sense of humor are required when watching Miike's film…bullets; blood and chopped-off heads are flying around constantly. The film's high tempo lowers a bit during the second half, as the story becomes slightly more sentimental and moralistic…but even then there's a lot of absurdity and joy to discover. Like the most bizarre sex scene ever, for example! Miike doesn't seem to care about all the social values and that's his strongest power. I'm sure that, if someone would release a film like this in my country, there'd be tons of angry parents and worried sociologists complaining because of the involvement of children in Fudô. It just isn't ‘politically correct' to portray 8-year-olds with firearms but THAT is what makes Miike's film so unique. If you're not too easily shocked, you should check this film out. It's Miike's best since I wasn't that much a fan of his manga-playground ‘Itchi'. Now…anyone up for a game of vagina-darts???

I cannot decide how I feel about this movie. It's basically an orgy of vengeance, with the "eye for an eye" law being enforced over and over again. Toss in the occasional naked breast (for flavor) and don't forget the dark comedy. I disliked the pacing of individual scenes, many of which consist of a few brief spoken lines with 5 seconds of dramatic silence in between. At times I wanted to push fast-forward to get to the next line...only I couldn't because I was in a movie theater.Most of the movie's earnest attempts to shock the viewer with absurd violence succeed, at least in provoking nervous laughter from the audience. The asymmetry of the plot, however, left me unsure of how I should feel about each character.The film's musical score is sparse, and when it makes itself heard, its penchant for strident noise is unwelcome. Most of the movie, however, has a mute feeling which contributes to its uncomfortable, edgy atmosphere. At the very least I can say that, regardless of my opinion on this movie, it did make me curious to see the director's other works.