Seconds from being caught.

Just then the man you’re setting up brutally rapes your lady on top of the bed you’re hiding under. And you can’t do anything about it. This moral ambiguity is what makes for great crime flicks.

And to top it all off, you’re a woman.

Hide’s “Wild Criminal” takes the classic film noir convention of two star crossed lovers caught up in a world of crime who have a plan to escape their world of brutality and drops it in the lap of contemporary ultra violent Japanese yakuza cinema. A stylish film of greed and backstabbery that keeps the viewer guessing who they can trust is a slogan many of us have read on the backs of many , many, video boxes-- sometimes good, sometimes not. This is one of the good ones. Not great. But good.

Tomoyo is girlfriend to a powerful yakuza who disappears after he rips off his gang. She is left behind to fend for herself. She is weak. She’s a classic gun moll who can’t think for herself and survives in this world purely on her ability to look good and fuck on command. She is taken under the wing of Sawa, another gang boss, who is one of the more violent sadists existing outside of a Miike film.

Working at the Club Tomoyo and Sawa frequent is Yuki, the expressionless blonde haired lesbian (I fucking love the Japanese) waitress/prostitute who was left for dead after a gang rape in the opening scene and overheard Tomoyo’s boyfriends double cross.

The two bond as only two women caught in a world like this can. Yuki has never been afraid of men. She takes their abuse and marches forward. She pities Tomoyo but wants to protect her at the same time and the two plan to fuck over this gang and escape this world.

What follows is a series of events revealing slowly that we do not fully understand everyone’s intentions and do not know until the final frame who we can trust.

Pretty standard film noir, which in itself is never a bad idea. The genre is great for a reason. On top of that you add the sensibility of modern Japanese cinemas level of violence and sexuality and you have awesome popcorn material.

The direction is the typical dynamic wide angel lens, sharp angled shots that are expected of Asian cinema post 1980’s. The kind of stuff the Wachowski’s stole in heaping handful’s. The classic shot from “The Killer”of two people aiming guns at each others faces takes an interesting turn here when used by women. The direction doesn’t fall like many of these V-Cinema flicks (Japanese straight to video) of all style and no substance. The shots are used effectively to punch up a climatic moment and give the sequence shape. Hide has an interesting sense of pace, lulling the viewer into quiet moments of reprieve only to kick ‘em hard in the balls with short violent outbursts.

My main complaint was the minimal use of yakuza (and Takeshi Miike) regular Riki Takeuchi. Really one of Japans better stars, here I understand the desire to let the girls take center stage, but its kind of a cheat to use someone of his caliber in a small throw away role. Not that they should hire a crappy actor, but you don’t hire Clint Eastwood to play the guy in the red shirt in an episode of Star Trek. After Dead or Alive 2 I don’t understand why he isn’t in every single goddamn movie in Asia. Period.

The Region 1 disc from Media Blasters “Tokyo Shock” line offers trailers for other available titles. Good transfer. Some errors in the subtitles that are a little jarring, but livable.

Overall, really good flick. Not Miike or Kitano good, but how many are?

-Chris Sacks Los Angeles, Ca

Trailer: http://www.nipponcinema.com/trailers/wild_criminal/