With The Doorman arriving on UK Home Entertainment, we look
back at some of director Ryuhei Kitamura's craziest action.
Exploding onto the action scene in 2000 with his instant cult classic
zombie yakuza flick, Versus, director Ryuhei Kitamura marked himself as a name to look out
for when it comes to extreme, over-the-top action cinema. With his
latest action thrill-ride, The Doorman, Kitamura shows no signs of relaxing the pace as he delivers another
fight-filled thriller, packed with explosive action and hard-hitting
combat scenes.
The Doorman follows Ruby Rose (John Wick: Chapter 2) as a traumatised ex-Marine who takes a job in a luxury New York City
high-rise where her estranged family live. She’s soon called back into
action in order to outsmart and battle a group of art thieves and their
ruthless leader (Jean Reno,
Léon: The Professional, Ronin) as the criminal gang turns ever more violent and ‘the doorman’ is
forced to call upon her deadly fighting skills as she heads towards an
explosive showdown…
To celebrate the release of Kitamura’s latest action-packed fight-fest,
out on Digital Download 18th January and DVD 25th January, we’ve taken a
look at some of the wildest moments in the director’s frenzied film
career.
Yakuza Zombies (Versus, 2000)
The outrageous, wild and bloody cult classic that made director Ryuhei
Kitamura’s name. Set in the Forest of Resurrection, which contains the
444th portal to hell, an escaped prisoner enters the forest only to run
headfirst into a gang of particularly vicious Yakuza. Defending a girl
from the gangster thugs, the prisoner is forced to kill one of them…
only to see his dispatched foe quickly return to life. Yep, that’s
right, this is a film about Yakuza Zombies!
What follows is a fast-paced bloody action spectacle in which crazed
Yakuza, deadly assassins, zombie minions and 10th century samurai engage
in hyper-stylised combat.
The film made a star of Tak Sakaguchi, who would become one of
Japan’s go-to leading men when it comes to action madness, appearing in
further cult hits like Tokyo Gore Police and
Yakuza Weapon, but really this is Kitamura’s show and his twirling camera, emphasis
on poetic gun-play and insane story make Versus a must see
for fans of out-there cinema.
Samurai Showdown (Azumi, 2003)
Director Kitamura’s first stabs at the ‘jidaigeki’ Japanese period film
in 2003 saw him producing two madcap fight-fuelled samurai movies,
Aragami (produced on a minimal budget following a
booze-fuelled challenge by a producer) and hit-manga adaptation
Azumi.
The story of an orphaned girl raised by a deadly clan of assassins to
take out vicious warlords in violence-filled feudal Japan,
Azumi proved the perfect fit for Kitamura’s brand of
frenetic screen carnage. Filled with spectacular fight scenes as Azumi
and her assassin allies take on black-clad ninja and sword-wielding
mercenaries galore, no enemy proves more memorable than the flamboyant,
cackling swordsman Bijomaru Mogami (Onagiri Joe,
The World of Kanako, Air Doll). When Azumi faces Bijomaru for a climactic confrontation after having
taken out an army of samurai thugs, her sword is, literally, aflame.
Unleashing her dual-bladed katana she sets to work on sadist Bijomaru as
he cackles and twirls his way across the screen.
At one point the director takes his trademark roving camera to new
extremes with the fighters facing off on a suspended plank with the
camera spinning dizzyingly around them. The final sword-strike leaves
both Bijomaru and the audience’s heads spinning.
Global Kaiju Attack (Godzilla: Final Wars, 2004)
Kitamura took the reins of this epic 28th instalment of the monster
Japanese film series in 2004. A big fan of classic Godzilla movies,
especially those from the 1970s, the director felt that the series had
been lacking in the '80s, '90s and 2000s and wanted to bring his own
brand of over-the-top chaos to the franchise.
Godzilla: Final Wars did not disappoint as a whopping
total of 15 kaiju creatures do battle across the globe, causing untold
destruction. The film gives us the biggest monster smash-down in the
franchise’s history with Godzilla, Monster X, Keizer Ghidorah, Ebirah,
Rodan, Mothra, Gigan, King Caesar, Anguirus, Minilla, Kumonga,
Kamacuras, Manda, Hedorah and Zilla (a take on Hollywood’s much maligned
1998 effort!) all getting involved in the record-breaking havoc!
Choosing practical SFX over CGI with plenty of smashed model building
rubble left in the suitmation kaiju’s wake, this is the perfect
throwback to the King of the Monsters’ golden age.
Vinnie Jones Knocks a Commuter's Eye Out (The Midnight Meat Train, 2008)
Adapted from a Clive Barker story of the same name,
The Midnight Meat Train sees Kitamura in full-on gore-mode
as the psychopathic ‘Subway Butcher’ (played by footballing legend
Vinnie Jones) hunts down late night commuters on a metro train.
Armed with a meat-tenderiser and sporting a sadistic grimace, Jones
pulverises his way through a high volume of human meat in this
blood-soaked tale, but perhaps the stand-out moment is when he sends the
eyeball of one commuter flying after a hefty whack to the head. Rendered
in detailed CGI and displayed in slow-motion as the bloody ocular globe
flies towards the camera, this is one wild Kitamura moment which is
certain to put you off your dinner. Wince-inducing and unmissable!
Luke Evans Hiding in a Person's Skin (No One Lives, 2013)
In his ultra-gory horror flick No One Lives, Kitamura cast Luke Evans as a crazed, anonymous killer called
‘The Driver’ who’s out for bloody revenge. The film tells the story of a
man and his wife, Betty, who are driving across the US. They encounter a
group of plucky criminal teens who, assuming the couple are wealthy,
kidnap them for ransom money. But when the plot goes awry and Betty ends
up dead, the unnamed man (The Driver) begins to enact his vengeance upon
those who wronged him.
In one jaw-dropping moment after the initial kidnapping when one of the
teens ends up dead and their body is transported by the police, the
audience experiences a truly WTF moment when the lifeless body starts
wriggling and none other than Luke Evans emerges, encased in the dead
man’s skin and covered head-to-toe in gore! We’re assuming Disney missed
this one when they cast him in family-favourite
Beauty and the Beast!
The Doorman is available on Digital Download 18 January
and
DVD
25 January 2021 from Lionsgate UK.