Fudoh: The New Generation

Hailed by TIME magazine as one of the ten best of 1997, FUDOH is a stylized Yakuza film about Riki Fudoh, a high school student whose Yakuza kingpin father murdered his other son, Riki's brother, in order to settle a business agreement. Riki witnessed the killing and vowed revenge on his father and the older generation of Yakuza bosses. To exact this revenge, Riki, now a high school student, has put together a gang of his own. Comprised of pre teen assassins, schoolgirl strippers, and other teenage miscreants, Riki's gang begins a war with his father and his associates, who have no intention of bowing down to this upstart uprising. Based on the manga by Hiroshi Tanemara, FUDOH is an inventive, bloody, and often hilarious film from the Japanese director Takashi Miike (AUDITION). Though decidedly not for all tastes, FUDOH's combination of black humor, gore, and style make it one of the most audacious and entertaining films to emerge from Japan in the 1990s.