Riki commented on one of the recent run-downs of Japanese, Korean and other Asian horror movies: “anyone seen The Happiness of the Katakuris? Kind of a horror musical. The Sound of Music meets Takashi Miike, with a bit of clay animation thrown in for good measure.”

It’s true that the original The Quiet Family (1998) was included, but Takashi Miike was almost completely ignored. Which is very unfortunate.

Everyone has seen Audition and Ichi the Killer but Takashi Miike is one of the most prolific filmmakers there ever was, so there are many many more. Here’s a half dozen of the best of them. Maybe you’ve seen some of them before–but each is surprising and often very surprising!

Dead or Alive (2000) Often called DOA. The Tokyo underworld is being torn apart by a turf war between the yakuza gangs and the invading Chinese triads. Ambitious yakuza member Ryuichi isn’t above playing both sides off against each other in his bid for power, while police detective Jojima, himself none too scrupulous in his methods, is out to destroy the gangs. Into this conventional plot framework Miike piles enough warped characters and bizarre, twisted happenings to fuel half-a-dozen Tarantino movies, while cheerfully borrowing–and inflating–key moments from hard-boiled gangster-noirs. [amazon.com]

Fudoh (1996) The young Riki Fudoh is severely traumatized by witnessing the murder of his brother as his father decapitates him in order to please the bosses of the other yakuza families. Riki promises himself to seek revenge on those who ordered the killing of his brother. Ten years later when Riki is in high school he has organized himself with well-trained six-year-old assassins with guns and stun-guns, two lethal high school girls, and a gigantic high school boy that can crush anything with his hands. [amazon.com] Trailer here.

Gozu (2003) Minami, a member of the Azamawari crew, highly respects his senior Ozaki who has saved his life in the past. However, lately Ozaki’s eccentricities have been making everyone wonder about his sanity. Chairman Azamawari is unsympathetic to Ozaki’s little outbursts and secretly orders Minami to take Ozaki to a disposal facility in the city of Nagoya. There, the fate of these two follows a twisted path filled with violence, mother’s milk, strange locals, and ultimately the disappearance of Ozaki’s corpse which Minami now desperately tries to recover. [amazon.com] Trailer here.

Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) The Katakuri family has just opened their guesthouse in the mountains. Unfortunately their first guest commits suicide and in order to avoid trouble they decide to bury him in the backyard. Things get way more complicated when their second guest, a famous sumo wrestler, dies while having sex with his underage girlfriend and the grave behind the house starts to fill up more and more. [amazon.com] Trailer here.

Imprint (2005) “Have I got your attention, mister?” By the time you reach this line in Takashi Miike’s Imprint, the answer will be a resounding, horrified “Yes!” This much-rumored-about episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series became notorious as the first installment to be denied an airing. It’s not difficult to see why the network balked. The story follows an American on a journey to a ghostly island bordello in Japan; he’s searching for a girl he lost years before. The prostitute he meets has stories to tell–and they abound in incest, abortion, murder, and one of the grisliest torture scenes ever produced for a mainstream outlet. [amazon.com] Trailer here.

Visitor Q (2001) Visitor Q is one of the most disturbing and taboo-bashing experimental works from acclaimed director Takashi Miike of Audition, Dead of Alive, and Fudoh fame. Visitor Q presents a harrowing absurdist take on the reality TV phenomenon, depicting the chilling disintegration of a dysfunctional family. Starring Kenichi Endo (Dead or Alive 2, Takeshi Kitano’s Violent Cop), Visitor Q seals Miike’s reputation as one of world cinema’s most daring and dangerous cinematic visionaries. [amazon.com] Trailer here.