I will try and make this a weekly item, where I review an Asian film, old or new, live-action or animated. And this week we get to jump things off with Ryu Ga Gotoku (Like A Dragon)

Kazuma Kiryu(Kazuki Kitamaru) has been released from prison after ten years inside. He was a part of the local Yakuza and now wishes to lead a peaceful life. He befriends this young girl Haruka(Natsuo Tomita) who wishes to find her mother. Goro Majima(Goro Kishitani) a general for the Yakuza wishes to settle a fight he has with Kiryu before he was incarcerated, and is searching the streets for him. Let the fight begin…

The movie is based on a video game by the same name in Japan, but is known as “Yakuza” in the Western Hemisphere. The story is pretty much “who cares”. There are a lot of random things happening and the director is trying to spend too long following all of them at once. Two youngsters decide to become petty thieves, an assassin is hiding in the shadows going after the Yakuza boss, two guys are robbing a bank which has no money, Majima is searching for Kiryu, and Kiryu is searching for Haruka’s mother. If you didn’t get all of that I wouldn’t bother to try and read it a second time. This movie is based on a fighting game, and I find it interesting how much chitty-chat goes on in it. I mean there are some fight sequences, but nothing huge… it isn’t like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter where they are always fighting. Which I think is the biggest downer to this movie.

The acting is utter trash. I mean a lot of the characters are done very over the top tough guy stuff, especially Kiryu and Majima. Majima definitely feels the most correct of the characters, when I see him I’m definitely thinking Japanese Fighting Video Game. And I love that he uses his bat as a weapon… kinda makes me laugh to see the ball spin when it hits the enemy’s head. Kiryu on the other hand is just walking around and asking questions… only saddened to have to run into a fight.

I think what I love the most about the movie is the characters’ clothes. I love that Majima and Kiryu are in their strange and badass (respectively) suits for the movie. It brings me back to the idea that it definitely looks like a Japanese Video Game (anyone who’s played an SNK game).

Overall this movie is nothing to write home about. It isn’t even on Rotten Tomatoes when I tried to look for their rating. Only if your into blatantly awful Asian movies where your going to turn off all thought and just laugh at the few and far between moments.

IMDB says 5.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes N/A

I say 4.0/10