40
For all its berserk energy, you will need a very particular sense of humour not to lose patience with the prolific Takashi Miike’s latest.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
It's an undeniable hoot that plays very much to a specific audience but a word of warning: even those that are fans of this kind of ridiculous and farcical actioner might find themselves checking out of Yakuza Apocalypse before their stay is up. Again, with emphasis on the word 'might'.
63
The film doesn't add up to much, but it's a diverting tour of Takashi Miike's anything-goes, splatter-paint sensibility.
30
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
For all its manic energy, there aren't enough recreational drugs in the world to make Yakuza Apocalypse anything but a bloody silly bore.
75
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
His latest, the deranged and frequently funny Yakuza Apocalypse, is in many ways a return to both his early years in the wilds of V-Cinema — Japan’s direct-to-video industry — and to the kind of midnight-movie fodder that first made his reputation abroad, albeit done on a much larger scale and with fewer quirks of style.
91
It may be a hugely tacky, cartoony balloon pit of a film, but when every single element is dialled up to eleven and you can't go thirty seconds without another three-way face-off between OTT, OMG and WTF, it starts to achieve a maximalist artistry that almost feels avant-garde. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
80
Screen International by Lee Marshall
Often laugh-out-loud funny, even (or rather especially) as the silliness escalates in the final half hour, this is a cult cineaste’s treat which rampages gleefully through a china shop of genre conventions. Only killjoys who demand narrative coherence will fail to respond.
67
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
Yakuza Apocalypse is Miike at the top of his game, breaking cinematic rules at every chance while crafting seriously subversive cinema that defangs both the real-world Yakuza, the Japanese government, and, heaven help us, Sanrio, too. Knitting, I tell you! Knitting!
70
If you can get on its wacko wavelength, it's a uniquely crazed, compelling midnight-movie whatsit.
100
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
The demented brilliance of Miike’s film lies in the director’s ability to craft ideas that are simultaneously sublime and ridiculous.