Takashi Miike

Miike Takashi (三池崇史) (born August 24, 1960 in Osaka, Japan) is a highly prolific Japanese filmmaker, having made almost forty theatrical productions in about ten years. Many of his films contain graphic, almost cartoonish violence and bloodshed, criminals (especially yakuza), or concern themselves with non-Japanese living in Japan (such as Brazilians, Chinese, or Russians).

He graduated from Yokohama Hoso Eiga Senmon Gakko (Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film[?]).

He gained world noteriety in 2000 when his horror films Audition[?] and Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha[?] debuted in international film festivals.

His very first films were movies for TV, but he purportedly directed several direct-to-video releases that were financed as money-laundering operations for the yakuza, although there has never been any conclusive proof of this.

His most controversial film has been Ichi the Killer (2001) (殺し屋１), adapted from a manga of the same name, and starring Asano Tadanobu[?] as a sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer looking for a mysterious killer named Ichi. (During its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2001, the audience received "barf bags" emblazoned with the film's logo as a promotional gimmick.) The BBFC refused to show the film uncut in Britain, and in Hong Kong it was shown missing over ten minutes of footage (although in the United States it has been shown uncut and unrated).