"Alive" is a dark dystopian science-fiction drama that convinces with some philosophic thoughts and some social criticism. There are a couple of intriguing mysteries surrounding the movie that keep a certain level of tension. This Japanese flick though lives especially from its dark and twisted dystopian atmosphere and a good graphic work. The acting performances of the two male prisoners and the strange witch are great enough to carry the movie on and have a classic and theatrical approach reminding me of Sartre's "No Exit".

Towards the end, the movie sadly shifts into a rather ordinary fantasy flick with some boring action scenes. I also feel that one could have developed some characters a little bit more and gone more into some details. While there are many interesting aspects, the movie doesn't go as it could have. As soon as the mysteries are solved or left untouched, the story shifts into emptiness and the whole structures gets somewhat overlong, pointless and even emotionless. Even the acting gets less addicting and one loses interest concerning the different characters. The dramatic turn of events in the ending can't save much anymore and leaves the viewers more or less untouched because the flick lost too much credit in its last third.

In the end, the movie is a mixed package with two third of the running time that is rather addicting, diversified and filled with tension, mystery and atmosphere while the last third is less intense and lacks of originality. This is a fairly interesting movie to rent or watch once but only of an average quality compared to many other contemporary Japanese movies and I wouldn't suggest you a blind purchase of this flick. After all, my rating is seven out of ten but I'm maybe still a little bit generous, so don't expect an outstanding movie in here but just some good entertainment with a few enjoyable qualities.

Vidocq is a masterpiece and easily amongst the best movies of the last decade. There are several reasons for this but the most stunning one is the visual beauty of this movie that gives this flick an artistic, atmospheric and also surreal touch. I have never seen a movie before or after this one by Pitof that was so breathtaking from a purely visual point of view. All those experts that hail rather superficial movies such as "Matrix", "Inception" or "Avatar" should watch this one and get a good lesson about how modern films can be made without being too commercial, too soulless and too much filled with stereotypes. Note that this was also the very first feature film shot with the Sony digital 1080p 24 fps cameras to reach the screen.

Off course, a good graphic can't save a film if the rest is mediocre. This leads me to the second act of brilliance within this masterpiece which is its thick and authentic atmosphere. The camera positions, the reconstruction of fascinating city between glamour and dirt, life and death, money and poverty and the great music featuring the Cello rock band Apocalyptica add a lot to the intensity of this movie. From the first moments on, you are into the movie and won't get out of it before a little bit more than one hour and a half. The movie is detailed but still gets to the point and has no unnecessary side stories, stereotypical love tales or anything else which seems just perfect to me.

A third convincing point is the story that features some truly original murders, a couple of diversified and mysterious characters and a couple of twists in the end that may take you by surprise because to see them coming. I really thought that the ending was brilliant and better than any closure of a suspense movie or psycho thriller I have seen in a while.

As a fourth point, Vidocq also mixes an addicting crime story, some adventure movie parts, suitable action scenes and a couple of drama sequences with a magic fantasy story that is still rather grounded than just exaggerated. The fact that this potpourri of styles works so perfectly makes this movie once again unique from a different point of view.

All of this would guarantee a high rating about eight points but the two missing points are brought by the brilliant and convincing actors in the movie. From the young and naive role played by Guillaume Canet over the fatale femme role of Inés Sastre up to the desperate and rough character performed by Moussa Maskri, every single character has an addicting and unique style. The presence of the famous Gérard Depardieu is an entertaining detail and could help to attract a bigger and much needed audience that should not miss this movie.

In the end, Vidocq excels on every level. It's sad that there hasn't been more movies of this kind because when I saw this film back ten years ago I was sure that it would influence and change the way movies are done in our world but it ultimately didn't. Still, I don't understand the reasons why because the movie is as stunning and modern today as it was in 2001. I could have also imagined that computer games in the visual style of Vidocq could have been made. If anything of this may one day happen, if there is a movie or game similar to the style of Vidocq, I will be the first to watch and purchase it. Vidocq is a milestone of the cinema for me. If you haven't seen this movie yet, don't make the mistake to wait and forget to check this out. This is one of those movies one must see at least once in a lifetime.

Originally, this is one movie with a length of approximatively two hours. For an unknown reason, the movie was though cut into two pieces, at least for the North American release. Both movies have a running time for about eighty minutes but this is part of a fake. The first part finishes with Hideshi driving away to search his brother. The second part though starts with the last fifteen minutes or so of the first movie and eventually has only a length of one hour. You see once again how the kidnapping, rape and liberation scenes.

I will try my best to help you to understand this flick and its story.

Hideshi Miwa is the most powerful Yakuza member of the three brothers. He has a wife and daughter that plays piano. His brother Takashi also has a wife that gets kidnapped. The drunk father of the two brothers gets killed by a gang in the beginning of the movie. The third brother is Takeshi, a hit man that kills Iwaida Nishikawi. Iwaida is the man that rapes the mother of the three brothers that suffers thirty years later from dementia. Iwaida turns out to be the father of Takeshi. As strange as it seams, his raping victim and Iwaida himself later fell secretly in love. Iwaida was the boss of a Yakuza clan with a lower number and the loyal Kenmoshi tries now to hunt the hit man Takeshi and the prostitute Rie Ishibashi who accidentally witnessed the murder after she had sex disguised as a nurse with a smoking man on the roof of the building.

Iwaida had to die because he knew too many secrets about the past of the Yakuza boss number one who hired Takeshi. The second person who knew about those secrets is his lover, the mother of the three Miwa brothers, that gets isolated in a nursing home as she suffers from dementia and ultimately commits suicide. The third person who knows about the secrets of the old number one is completely loyal. He only tells about the secrets after several torture sessions. It's only when Takeshi realizes that he was sent to kill his own father without knowing it and that this move started an internal Yakuza war, that he questions the godfather. His brother Hideshi let the loyal servant of the godfather torture with the help of a selfish female Yakuza boss. She tries to trick the other bosses to climb up the latter of power.

The female Yakuza and two of the Miwa brothers set a trap for the godfather in Manila. But number one gets to know about the plans (probably with some help of the female Yakuza boss that is with him) and chases Hideshi and Takeshi with a group of mercenaries and a helicopter.

The final scene where Hideshi and Takeshi seem to have survived and when Hideshi fires six shots leads to four possibilities.

First: Hideshi and Takeshi really survived and killed all of the mercenaries as well as the people in the helicopter and shot the Godfather.

Second: Hideshi and Takeshi survived and killed not only the Godfather but also the treacherous female Yakuza boss and Hideshi becomes the new number one.

Third: This scene is only fictional as the two brothers could not have survived against all of those mercenaries. The Godfather survived and the female Yakuza boss is the new number two.

Fourth: Hideshi and Takeshi died but the Godfather gets gunned by the female Yakuza boss. She becomes number one.

Choose your camp.

Now, let's talk about the movie itself and my rating.

First of all, this cut to pieces formula is quite unique for the gangster movie genre. This flick is a fast paced rocket ride with and requests multiple viewings, a lot of concentration and loads of patience. Especially as the movie is only available in Japanese with more or less well done English subtitles.

Second, the story itself is quite interesting, diversified and twisted and keeps the tension high.

Third, Takashi Miike experiments with digital video and digital editing techniques. This can include superimpositions, various forms of distortions and noises and blue screen shots. Those elements give the movie sometimes a surreal touch, sometimes an old school touch and sometimes a very technically orientated and modern touch. The camera positions and screen formats can abruptly change.

Fourth, the movie uses music as a stylistic element to fit or even contrast the events. We have some folk music, some soft piano tracks and a lot of music by a Japanese band called "Monkey Pirates". I liked those unusual experiments that made this film even more unique.

Fifth, I really liked the acting and the strong diversity of mad characters. We truly get delivered every character one can imagine to be put into two hours: a drunk and desperate coward, a stupid and joking police officer, an old and desperate woman suffering from amnesia, a brutal and pitiless pervert, a severe domina, a joyful and smart young daughter, a two-faced treacherous stepmother, a smart male secretary and more. Now, I have only talked about some of the more secondary roles, just imagine the diversity of the interesting main characters.

In the end, there are many reasons to consider Family as a unique, intriguing and diversified movie that will grow on you if you let it in. It's surely not a mainstream movie and not easy to digest but that has not often been the case of any movie made by Takashi Miike. It's not one of his masterpieces but one of his greater movies. If you are new to the world of Takashi Miike or Asian gangster movies, I would though suggest you to check out his classics first such as "Audition".

This second part of the two Mesrine movies shows us the return of Mesrine to France, how he became the public enemy number one and how he was finally gunned down by the French police after two extreme decades of living on the edge of life.

The acting of Vincent Cassel as Mesrine is even more profound and insightful in this part as in the first one. The way he demands pardon for all the bad things he had done in front of his dying father or how his daughter meets him as he is imprisoned are truly touching events. The way how Mesrine is left alone by all of his partners and friends in the end and how his girlfriend acts after his death are also very intense and sad moments of the movie.

With the great and charismatic Mathieu Amalric that portrays François Besse, there is a new interesting character in this movie that forms an explosive and very diversified partnership with Mesrine.

The second part of the movie also adds a lot of absurd, dark and sometimes almost surreal humour in comparison to the first part for example when Mesrine and Besse try to cross a river, when Mesrine and another gangster kidnap an old millionaire or when Mesrine gives some of his strange interviews.

The problem I have with this movie is that it is somewhat repetitive. Mesrine commits a murder or theft, gets imprisoned and finally escapes and the circle begins again which is very predictable. Even though Amalric does a great job, I also miss some more memorable characters such as the ones portrayed by Gérard Depardieu, Cécile de France or Roy Dupuis in the first part.

Neverthelss, this movie is a truly solid and essential continuation of the first and better part of this masterpiece and portrays the final years of one of the most stunning gangsters of the twentieth century. Both parts are definitely worth your time and money if you like straight but still insightful gangster movies.

The two Mesrine movies are easily the best gangster movies of the last years and can without a doubt be described as the French Godfathers even though the two films have not exactly the same class as the legendary masterpieces.

The thing that is really interesting about this movie is that it is told after true events and partially based on the autobiography of the French gangster and public enemy number one Jacques Mesrine. The movie makes very clear that one can't develop much sympathy for the character but his radical way of life, his brutal honesty and his strong and dangerous emotions surely create a very addicting, explosive and unique character.The first movie tells his life from his actions during the Algerian War up to his escape from a prison in Quebec.

The character is introduced in a very interesting way. One witnesses his first theft, his first murder as well as his first escapes from prison but also how he gets into the crime scene, how he gets to know his second wife and how he gets along as his role as a father of three children with her. Mesrine always chooses the craziest, most radical and often most selfish way to escape from his problems. This movie is not just a gangster saga filled with action and tension but has also an emotional touch of the drama genre and some dark and sarcastic humour.

Mesrine is perfectly portrayed by one of the best contemporary actors coming from France which is Vincent Cassel. Roy Dupuis plays the very charismatic Canadian terrorist and Mesrine's âme soeur Jean-Paul Mercier. The French acting crème de la crème appears in this first part of the legacy. Cécile de France plays Mesrine's future girlfriend and partner in crime that finally decides to chose the path of freedom and justice. Gérard Depardieu plays the intelligent gangster boss Guido. Ludivine Sagnier portrays Mesrine's latest girlfriend and excels in her role as a superficial blonde with fixations on a bourgeoisie lifestyle. The acting of this movie is really stunning and every actor plays his or her role close to perfection.

The movie also discusses topics such as love, friendship, treason, loyalty, respect and more in a very intense way and how Mesrine feels about it. He is a very extreme personality and some of his actions contradict what he has already done or will do in the future and this shows how fragile this gangster really is.

The greatness of this movie does not stop there. The part of the movie when Mesrine is put into a French Canadian prison is very intense. It is not only well filmed with interesting camera positions and cold, touching decorations but reminds me of legendary prison movies such as "Papillon" or "The Shawshank Redemption" and contains some well hidden but intense criticism. Mesrine's escape from prison eventually led to the closure of those inhuman French Canadian prisons and this movie shows us the way of life in this hell in a very intense way. The movie also slightly criticizes the corruptive justice and police in France as well as the way how the medias deal with Mesrine's fate and make an iconic modern Robin Hood out of a dangerous and ignorant gangster that begins to use the medias for his own good and enjoys the show.

As you can see, the movie contains many different elements and details that make it a very diversified, intense and still entertaining gangster movie which happens to be one of the best of its kind. If you like "The Godfather", "Once Upon A Time In America", "Papillon" and "The Shawshank Redemption" you should definitely check this masterpiece out. If you happen to like this movie, you should absolutely try to get the German gangster and terrorist movie "Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex" which is also based on true events and happened at the same time as Mesrine became the public enemy number one in France. The French movie has also some connections to those events as Mesrine talks from time to time about it as you should have noticed.

In the end, this movie about an extreme and charismatic character is way more than an excellent gangster movie with some social criticism but a gripping two hours of history class.

The only reason why I didn't give the highest possible note is that I would have liked to learn more about the youth of Mesrine. For example, the movie didn't show us his very first wife and how he quit her to go to the Algerian War. It didn't show us how he got honoured by the French government and military for his heroic actions during wartime. It didn't show us how he got caught the first time during a bank theft and how he dealt with it. Those little elements could have made the character even more intense, profound and interesting but a part of that, there is really nothing negative about this amazing movie.