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So much average

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

RAINY DOG is another Yakuza story from the prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike and an unconnected follow-up of sorts to his SHINJUKU TRIAD SOCIETY. This one tells the tale of a Japanese assassin who now lives in Taiwan, eking out a living performing jobs for a local crime boss. The film has a grim and depressing feel to it, and is also very slow paced without much of the directorial style or vibrant action we've come to expect from the director. Instead it's a world of nihilism and nastiness, full of driving rain and abuse. The film's heart involves the main character's relationship with his son, an estranged boy who is thrown into his care without warning. I found the experience dull and dreary and lacking imagination, not one of the director's better films.

Really, movies of this sort are more expected from Takeshi Kitano than Takashi Miike. Sentimental, lonely gangsters who wander the streets silently and try to escape the senseless, but ultimately fatalistic, violence that surrounds their lives. However, Miike tones it down a bit for this second in his "Black Society Trilogy", providing a heart-felt and strangely hopeful little art piece despite its bleakness.Yuji is a Japanese hit-man in Taipei. He lives basically day by day, killing people for his boss and then going home to sleep. Then an old squeeze he doesn't even remember stops by and drops off a little kid, Chen, claiming that the kid is Yuji's son. Faced with responsibility... Yuji basically goes along as if nothing happened. However, with this little kid following him around, and spending a few days with a just as lonely prostitute, Yuji decides its time to go somewhere. And his next hit provides his new means, though of course it also provides his greatest obstacle.Like Shinjuku Triad Society, the first film in this thematic trilogy, as much care is put into the emotions of the "badguy" or foil as the main character, and they honestly share more in common than is typical in most films. In this case, they even have brunch together while discussing their ultimate loneliness and the fact that they know they're going to have to face each other eventually, the type of scene that makes Heat such a success (only without that sense of star power). And some surprising twists and idyllic scenes make this movie more than unpredictable enough to be worth it for fans of Yakuza flicks, Miike films, Beat Kitano movies, and otherwise.I wouldn't be surprised if the screenwriter has scene Once upon a Time in the West. This movie seems almost like an unofficial prequel, only Asian. Nevertheless, it's a very beautiful and thoughtful film, and more effective emotionally than sensationally than Miike's greater oeuvre. In other words, it's a must-see for just about anybody interested in this type of movie.--PolarisDiB

One of the first Takashi Miike movies I ever saw was 'Dead Or Alive' and shocked me because it didn't play by "the rules", adding unexpected surreal touches to the violent yakuza thriller genre. I reacted very negatively to the movie at the time, but I subsequently grew to admire it the more I got into Miike's groove. Now that I'm familiar with Miike's more extreme movies like 'Ichi The Killer' and 'Visitor Q' I'm prepared for just about anything, but I was once again a bit nonplussed the first time I watched 'Rainy Dog'. Not because it was outrageous, but because it wasn't. 'Rainy Dog' is nothing like Miike's other early yakuza movies like 'Fudoh: The New Generation' and 'Full Metal Yazuza'. Anyone expecting the ultra-violent action and crazy humour of those two will be disappointed. Instead 'Rainy Dog' is a slow, atmospheric character study, very serious and dark in tone. Miike regular Sho Aikawa plays Yuuji a low level hit man exiled in Tawain. Yuuji is depressed from the relentless rain and becoming increasingly alienated. He sees no reason to his monotonous existence. One day a former lover (his wife?) turns up with a young boy (his child? It's not clear) who she dumps. Yuuji ignores the child who camps outside his flat and tags along on his hits. The boy seems to slowly humanize him, as does a prostitute he becomes involved with, but perhaps it is too late. Yuuji's life of violence is about to catch up with him. Miike makes great use of the rain soaked locations, and the movie is interesting for the fact that apart from Aikawa and another one of his regular actors Tomorowo Taguchi the cast is Tawainese and much of the dialogue is in Mandarin. The soundtrack regularly features a Ry Cooder-like slide guitar, and overall the movie has more in common with Takeshi Kitano's yakuza movies that Miike's. 'Rainy Dog' isn't one of Miike's most outrageous movies but it's still recommended and shows a more thoughtful side to this amazing director.

Rainy Dog is one of four movies that Takashi Miike shot in 1997, and is the second part of his "Shinjuku Triad Society" trilogy. I am not sure what connection it has to parts 1 & 3 - being set in Shinjuku certainly isn't one of them though, as it is set and filmed in Taipei, Taiwan. It also works perfectly well as a stand alone movie.Rainy Dog is a movie about a yakuza who has ended up in Taipei, apparently on the run from some gang or other. He works as a hitman for a local boss and tries to stay out of the rain. Apparently it rains a *lot* in Taipei. He forms the beginnings of a family when a woman he slept with many years ago turns up and announces that the mute kid she dumps on him is his.Rainy Dog is quite an unusual movie for Takashi Miike, being almost totally free of the extreme, unusual and shocking elements for which his work is known. The movie is played pretty much straight, just focussing on old fashioned elements like characters, script, cinematography and symbolism. Not a lot of dialogue (Yuuji barely speaks more than his kid), but when people do speak it is quite thoughtful and insightful.Rainy Dog is one of Takashi Miike's most technically accomplished films. The cinematography and soundtrack are excellent and editing superb. Despite the fact that most of the cast is speaking Mandarin, which I doubt Miike speaks, he is able to elicit excellent performances from everybody.Rainy Dog is an artful kind of gangster movie, gently paced and philosophical. It's the closest Miike has come to making a Takeshi Kitano movie (it even has the requisite scene at the sea). It doesn't have anything that really leaps out and grabs the viewer by the balls like other movies such as Dead Or Alive, Visitor Q, Happiness Of The Katakuris or Full Metal Gokudo, but it's probably one of his most well balanced films.Recommended!