Review: At first look this movie looks really simple right, but don't be fouled by the basic story. City of Lost Souls has a lot more to offer than your average love/action movie. The fact that Takashi Miike helmed this movie is probably the reason why this movie is so special. Every movie that Miike touch, transforms into an extraordinary cinematic experience for us viewers. Right from the beginning you know that this movie will not be what you were expecting. With this movie, Miike created a new world, a universe were you can jump from an helicopter from the sky and without being injured at all, yakuza and triads finish dueling over a ping-pong match, cocks know kung fu and people brush their teeth with cocaine. With all these completely non realistic things happening in the movie, I would even call this movie a live action anime or maybe a fantasy action movie or maybe just another Takashi Miike movie.

I know that there as been some bad critics about this movie, it's true that this movie is probably the most accessible Miike movie has ever made. I mean by accessible that this one doesn't have the same shock factor as let say, Fudho or Dead or Alive or even Audition, where Miike uses extreme situations to shock or surprise people. In City of Lost Souls, Miike showed us a different style, more conventional yes, but Miike's touch is very noticeable in the movie from start to finish. There's so much weird and completely unexpected things happening in the movie that you cannot stay indifferent to this movie, it's is the kind of movie that should have their own categories.

Strangely this is a Japanese movie but without a Japanese feel, the reason is probably that most of the casting is international, Japanese, Brazilian, Chinese, African-Americans and Russian. What I found very funny about this particular melting pot of characters is that they were really stereotyped. Russians have to drink vodka and always be drunk, African-Americans have a Bob Marley look and are smoking pot and so on... Of course there is no offense meaning in this and it was showed on a caricatured and humoristic way, quite possibly even considered a parody. Even if there is a lot of these weird characters during the movie, the story still takes precious time to show us the relation between Mario and Kei.

Strangely, I didn't care that much about the two main characters, not because they were bad actor or anything but because I found them a bit boring. They just followed the course of the movie without really taking any part in the development of the movie, except near the end. Kei, played by Michelle Reis just following Mario without questioning and Mario was just following his instinct without thinking about the consequences of his action. On the contrary, I found the four main gangsters character very funny and interesting, especially the two Japanese guys, who just looked too much like a pair of crooked cops. Their side of the story is probably the most interesting in the movie. The Chinese boss also had a very anime look that I really liked, his acting and facial impressions were just so right for that kind of character. Probably the most underrated character in the movies are the policemen, too bad that they didn't showed us more about this group, but even with that they still have their great moments on screen.

More than just another weird film, City of Lost Souls is a blast for his cinematic vision. I don't want to say too much about it but I can tell you that I was very surprised how beautifully and ingeniously the movie was shot. Miike have this special talent to turn a simple scene into a memorable scene that you will still remember after seeing the movie and I really think that this is one of the strong points of the movie. Some may find it great but some might also find it cheesy, it really depends how open minded you are for the movie. If you come in expecting a serious drama, you may be disappointed.

Like all good action movies, the actions scenes are many and abundant. I don't consider action as the main point of the movie, but I really enjoyed these completely demented and twisted, action scenes. During the course of the movie, you will witness gunfights ending up in a freaking cool way, Brazilian capoiera fighting and cock fighting like you never seen before. But the main problem with these great action sequences is that they don't last very long unfortunately, so don't wait for much elaborated gun or street fight or you'll be disappointed. But even if these sequences are very short, the way they happen and are showed are candies for the eyes. I can guarantee you that. The action and absurd situations are also very well spread out during the whole movie, so you won't have to wait too long for something to happen.