AGITATOR

Wow, what an uppercut of a grisly, hilarious and strangely moving crime film! We don’t know how he pulled it off, but iconic Japanese provacateur Takashi Miike released this plus VISITOR Q, ICHI THE KILLER and HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS all in the same breathless year of 2001.

AGITATOR is an endlessly surprising yakuza satire in the Robert Altman vein, with 30+ richly textured oddball characters careening off each other in shocking, gory and often genuinely moving ways. In Miike’s world, sparring yakuza clans are gobbled up and merged by the corporate machine just like start-ups…and shirtless hot-guy assassin Kunihiko doesn’t know how to feel about that. So, he stirs the pot to create one of the bloodiest messes Miike ever filmed.