Takahisa Zeze Movies

Combining yakuza, science fiction, and vampire elements may sound like an outlandish recipe for campy excess in the United States, but former pinku eiga director Takahisa Zeze plays things remarkably straight in this truly unique effort from Japan. In the near future, a group of desolate citizens spend their days and nights in Mallepa, a large refugee community located in the "Asian Special Economic Zone." Though brothers Sho and Shinji survive on the streets with a little resourcefulness and the help of friend Toshi, an encounter with wounded vampire Kei forever changes the course of their lives. Soon after taking Kei back to their hideout so that the desperate vampire may recover, an angry gangster shows up to reclaim a stolen briefcase full of cash. Although Kei is quick to make dinner out of the angry gangster, his efforts to keep his trio of friends from harm is too little too late when the determined gangster fires a fatal bullet into Shinji. When Sho and Toshi plan to rip off a rival gang a decade later, Kei follows and the team soon meets up with similar-minded Chinese troublemaker Son (Wang Lee Hom) and his sister Yi-Che (Zeny Kwok). Soon stalked by the revenge-thirsting rival gang, the trio lose track of their bloodsucking friend in the ensuing melee. It's not long before Sho and Son have a falling out and end up in rival gangs, but can the re-emergence of condemned vampire Kei be enough to bring the two old friends back on the same side of the fence again? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Takehisa Zeze -- the former "king of pink" movies who has reinvented himself as a noted indie filmmaker -- directs this wild and weird shaggy dog-style crime thriller. Three disgruntled employees of a Korean restaurant -- a bickering Korean couple deep in debt and the thuggish Masaya (Sho Aikawa) who sports a head of bottle-blonde hair -- hatch a scheme to get some cash quick: kidnap the daughter of their hated boss and demand a ransom. The daughter (Kim Yunjin), who speaks perfect English but not a word of Japanese, hates her old man for abandoning her and her mother in Korea while he struck it rich in Japan and is more than happy to stick it to her father. Just as the restaurant owner is about to cough up the 50 million yen, a nefarious cop named Naruse (Ren Osugi) kills him. When the kidnappers arrive to make the switch, they find a corpse, police lights, and Naruse. They flee on motorcycles, passing a salaryman (Toshiro Yanagiba) in a taxi in the midst of a heated argument with his wife on a cell phone; the taxi arrives in front of a love hotel where the man finds his wife and her punkish younger lover. A fistfight ensues, but the outcome proves to be so pathetic that she dumps them both. The two -- now comrades of a sort -- go out for drinks and hook up with a massive foreign wrestler (Hanihoh Henihah) with money to burn. After an alcohol-infused night of karaoke and carousing with hostesses, the boyfriend drives off with his new lady friend, only to get pulled over and abused by Ando (Hiroshi Abe), another crooked cop, who thinks he is one of the kidnappers. A bloody skirmish ensues, followed by many, many more of the same. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Renowned as the king of pink (softcore) films, acclaimed filmmaker Takahisa Zeze makes his first non-pink flick with this psychological thriller about lust and obsession. The film focuses on Fumiko (Akira Yoshino), the married bookkeeper for a beauty salon whose having an affair with hairstylist Sakai (Yota Kawase). Another worker at the salon is the shapely Mayumi (Shoko Kudo), who is the mistress of the shop's owner. When she announces that she is planning to quit in order to start a salon of her own, she and the owner celebrate with a night of hot and sweaty sex. The following day, Fumiko reads Mayumi's smug, satiated expression as meaning that she is sleeping with Sakai. Furious, she invites her rival over while her husband and kids are away and kills her. After chopping her up into bits, she deposits the remains in dumpsters about the neighborhood. Soon afterwards, Sakai delivers some unwelcome news -- not only does he not want to continue their sordid liaison, but he swears that he never slept with Mayumi. Furthering complications, Mayumi's taxi driver husband, Yukio (Taro Suwa), shows up at the salon to give the owner a thrashing. Fumiko ends up nursing his wounds and pride. Just as the police discover bags of Mayumi about town, Fumiko offers to take Yukio up to the snowy north to find his spouse, plotting his demise the whole time. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide