Takashi Miike

Takashi Miike (三池 崇史, Miike Takashi; born August 24, 1960) is a Japanese filmmaker and actor. He has directed over 100 films and television productions, in a variety of genres such as action, children's films, comedy, drama, horror, musicals, and jidaigeki period dramas.

He is best known for the horror films Audition (1999), Ichi the Killer (2001), Visitor Q (2001), Gozu (2003), and One Missed Call (2003). He is also known for samurai and yakuza films such as Dead or Alive (1999), Graveyard of Honor (2002), 13 Assassins (2010), earning a Japan Academy Film Prize nomination for Director of the Year), and Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011). He has also acted in more than 20 films.

Miike spent much of his career as a controversial figure who had several of his films criticized for their extreme graphic violence and other transgressive content, especially Ichi the Killer, which was banned in several countries. However, in his later career, he shifted towards work more acceptable to the mainstream; his films Hara-Kiri and Straw Shield (2013) were both nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, while both Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) and 13 Assassins were nominated for the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion. Several of his films have developed cult followings.^[1]

Miike was born in Yao, Osaka, on August 24, 1960.^[2] His mother was a seamstress and his father was a welder.^[3] His father was born in Seoul, which was then part of Japanese Korea, as his paternal grandfather was stationed in Korea and China during World War II. He was interested in motorcycles during his childhood, and considered racing professionally.^[4] At the age of 18, he joined the Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film (now the Japan Institute of the Moving Image), where he came under the guidance of the school's founder Shohei Imamura.^[4] When a local television company came looking for unpaid interns on a production, he was nominated by the school, despite his later claim that he only rarely attended classes.^[4][5]

Miike's first films were television productions, but he also began directing several direct-to-video V-Cinema releases. He still intermittently directs these due to the creative freedom afforded by the less stringent censorship of the medium and the riskier content that producers will allow.

Miike's theatrical debut was the film The Third Gangster (Daisan no gokudō),^[6][7] but Shinjuku Triad Society (1995) was his first theatrical release to gain public attention. The film showcased his extreme style and his recurring themes, and its success allowed him to work on higher-budgeted pictures. Shinjuku Triad Society was the first film in what is labeled his "Black Society Trilogy", which also includes Rainy Dog (1997) and Ley Lines (1999).

Miike gained international fame in the early 2000s when his horror film Audition (1999), his violent yakuza epic Dead or Alive (1999), and his controversial 2001 adaptation of the manga Ichi the Killer all played at international film festivals. He gained a strong cult following in the West that grew with the increase in DVD releases of his works. During the international premiere of Ichi the Killer at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival, the audience received "barf bags" emblazoned with the film's logo as a promotional gimmick.^[8] The BBFC refused to allow the release of the film uncut in the United Kingdom, citing its extreme levels of sexual violence towards women, and it required just over three minutes of footage to be removed before its release.^[9] In Hong Kong, 17 minutes of footage were cut.^[10] The film was outright banned in Germany, Malaysia, and Norway.^[11]

In 2005, Miike was invited to direct an episode of the anthology series Masters of Horror, intended to provide horror directors with creative freedom and relaxed restrictions on violent and sexual content. However, when Showtime acquired the rights to the series, Miike's episode "Imprint" was deemed too disturbing for broadcast. Showtime cancelled it from the broadcast lineup even after extended negotiations, though it was retained as part of the series' DVD release. Mick Garris, creator and executive producer of the series, described the episode as "amazing [but] hard to watch" and "definitely the most disturbing" production he had ever seen.^[12] "Imprint" has yet to air in the United States but was shown on Bravo in the United Kingdom,^[13] Nelonen in Finland, Rai Tre in Italy, and FX in multiple other countries. Anchor Bay Entertainment, which handled the American DVD releases for Masters of Horror, released the episode uncut on September 26, 2006.^[14]

In his later career, Miike has shifted towards work more acceptable to the mainstream; his samurai film Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival^[15] and his spy thriller film Straw Shield (2013) was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.^[16]

In 2005, Miike directed a Kabuki-style play titled Demon Pond. The DVD recording of the performance was released by Cinema Epoch.^[17][18]

Miike directed the play Zatoichi based on the eponymous character. The stage production was performed and filmed on December 12, 2007, and the DVD was released on May 30, 2008.

Miike achieved notoriety for depicting shocking scenes of extreme violence and sexual perversions. Many of his films contain graphic and lurid bloodshed, portrayed in an over-the-top and cartoonish manner. Much of his work depicts the activities of criminals, especially yakuza, or concern themselves with gaijin (foreigners living in Japan). He is known for his films' dark comedy and for pushing the boundaries of censorship.

Miike has directed films in a range of genres. He has created lighthearted children's films (Ninja Kids!!!, The Great Yokai War), period pieces (Sabu), a road movie (The Bird People in China), a teen drama (Andromedia), a farcical musical comedy horror (The Happiness of the Katakuris), video game adaptations (Like a Dragon, Ace Attorney), manga adaptations (Blade of the Immortal, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable, Terra Formers, The Mole Song Trilogy) and character driven crime dramas (Ley Lines, Agitator).

While Miike often creates films that are less accessible and target arthouse audiences and fans of extreme cinema, such as Izo and the "Box" segment in Three... Extremes, he has created several mainstream and commercial titles such as the horror film One Missed Call and the fantasy drama The Great Yokai War.

Reflecting his unusual approach to filmmkaing, Miike has said of his career:

I became a director because I didn't have another choice. I dreamed of becoming a motorbike racer because I love motorbikes a lot. I think anyone can become a director, especially if you have money. Even Haruki Kadokawa became a director. To become a famous musician is also a way to become a director and, like Takeshi Kitano, achieving fame as a comedian and then becoming a director gives you a lot of freedom. There are so many ways to become a director. If there is a 1–10 scale for talent, then a 10-point talent is a director, but a one-point person can also become a director if he has the talent to make the right contacts. In motorbike racing, on the other hand, the winner is always an extreme talent. Even if we train a lot, we can't beat them. I admire that kind of world. But I didn't have a choice. I never thought about becoming a director before. I considered the occupation of film director as being for the intelligentsia.

Miike cited the American science-fiction action film Starship Troopers (1997) as his favorite film.^[19] He has expressed admiration for fellow Japanese filmmakers Akira Kurosawa^[20] and Hideo Gosha.^[20][21] He named American filmmaker David Lynch as his favorite director from the English-speaking world,^[22] and cited Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (who directed Starship Troopers) as the director who fascinates him the most.^[22] He also said that he likes Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg.^[22]

Miike rarely discusses his private life.^[22]

Direct-to-video

Feature film

Live-action series and miniseries

TV movies

• Last Run: 100 Million Yen's Worth of Love & Betrayal (1992)
• Sabu (2002)
• Part-Time Detective (2002)
• Negotiator (2003)
• Part-Time Detective 2 (2004)
• Shin Abarenbō Shōgun (2025)

Anime series

• Onimusha^[29] (2023) (chief director)
• Nyaight of the Living Cat^[30] (2025) (chief director)

Music videos

• Pandōra (2002)

Commercials

• Chikyu kyodai (Blue Planet Brothers) (2013), ten 6-minute commercials for Japan Tobacco^[31][32][33]
• Midnight (2024), short online film for iPhone 15 Pro^[34][35][36]

• Mes, Tom. Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike. Godalming: FAB Press, 2003. ISBN 1903254213
• Williams, Tony. "Takashi Miike's Cinema of Outrage." cineACTION 64 (2004): 54–62
• "Izo: Takashi Miike's History Lesson." Asian Cinema 16.2 (2005): 85–109.
• Gerow, Aaron. "The Homelessness of Style and the Problems of Studying Miike Takashi." Canadian Journal of Film Studies 18.1 (2009): 24–43
• Black, Art (2003). "Takashi Miike Revisited". Asian Cult Cinema. 38 (1st Quarter): 12–17.

• Takashi Miike at IMDb
• Suicide is for the Birds: Takashi Miike's Tales of De-territorializing Flight at Fantasia 2003 and Beyond
• 2002 Interview at the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film
• SuicideGirls interview with Miike by Daniel Robert Epstein
• Takashi Miike at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)
• Interview with Takashi Miike by Mark Schilling
• Interview with Takashi Miike on Midnight Eye
• Interview with Miike regarding his Yakuza work on 1UP.com Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
• Another Decade with Takashi Miike: An Introduction
• PULP : : The Manga Magazine : : 6.01 What's No. 5?
• PULP : : The Manga Magazine : : 5.07 Feature
• PULP : : The Manga Magazine : : 5.07 Feature
• PULP : : The Manga Magazine : : THE WOUNDED MAN INTERVIEW