Dead or Alive

Dead or Alive (1999) — watch online on iFILM. Takashi Miike's first entry in a loose trilogy drops into Shinjuku's criminal underground, where gang leader Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) moves to seize the narcotics trade as Detective Jojima (Show Aikawa) tries to dismantle the operation piece by piece.

The setup is a straight crime film: rival factions, Chinese and Japanese mobsters cutting into each other's territory, a family man cop running out of options. Then Miike shifts registers. The finale arrives without warning, jumps several genres at once, and ends the film on entirely different terms from where it started. For viewers who know Miike's work, that is precisely what they came for. Everyone else has been warned. Stream Dead or Alive online on iFILM.