The Mole Song – Undercover Agent Reiji

With over 90 films to his credit, the prodigiously prolific Takashi Miike may be slowing down at the ripe old age of 53. This is only his second feature this year, but his predilection for outrageously violent campy films inspired by manga stories remains intact. Based on yet another manga hit by Noboru Takahashi, which has already been published in 35 volumes and claims a readership of over 4 million, The Mole Song – Undercover Agent Reiji (Mogura no uta) is a comically absurd, farfetched story stars a hopelessly incompetent cop who is fired from the police only to be reinstated as a mole and commissioned to infiltrate the most powerful yakuza gang in the country to try and catch its leader.

For audiences of the right age (preferably adolescents, or adolescents at heart) and in the right frame of mind (preferably mischievous), this crazy riot of a film might look like a lot of fun, akin to watching animation or playing a video game.

Action packed to the gills, but strangely leaving no dead bodies around, the unlikely adventures of Reiji Kikukawa (Toma Ikuta) may very well draw hordes of followers at home and develop into a full-fledged film franchise - the ending suggests that much - but once they cross the international borders, the appeal will probably be limited only to Miike’s most fanatic admirers.The film premiered at the Rome Film Festival.

Highly motivated but totally inept, Reiji graduates from the Police Academy with the lowest grades ever and goes on to make all the wrong moves, culminating in the attempted arrest of a city counsellor he caught harassing and molesting an underage adolescent girl. Kicked out of the force despite all his energetic protests, he is appeased only when he learns that he is due to become an undercover agent. He must pretend to become a member of a feared yakuza gang suspected of spreading a nefarious new drug called MDMA all over Japan, supplied in abundance by the Russian mafia.

Passing a countless number of tests, first instigated by the various law agencies to make sure he is fit for the job, and then by the yakuza, to ascertain he is not a traitor or informer,  Rieji manages somehow – never try to make sense of anything that happens in this film – to reach the highest echelons of crime world, signs all kinds of brotherhood pacts with notorious criminals and to find himself involved in a gang war which only he could eventually stop.

He is chased by everybody, everywhere, beats-up and is beaten regularly by friends and foes, and last but not least, while on the run from all his numerous enemies, loses his often-mentioned virginity in the arms of Junna (Riisa Naaka), his devoted policewoman girlfriend who will ultimately save his life.

Nothing is as it seems in this picture, twists and turns in the plot alternately erupt without warning, with the soundtrack amplifying every smack and slap to gruesome dimensions. Over-the-top colourful extravagance, brutal clowning and inane humor are the order of the day for the director, production designer and cameraman. Shinichi Tsutsumi (playing Crazy Papillon) as a fun-loving, notoriously dangerous but morally upstanding gangster, Takayuki Yamada as the blond villain with a mean streak and Takashi Okamura’s infamous miniature fiend with diamond studded fangs, stand out in a mass of familiar faces from other Japanese actioners.

Once more, police and yakuza are not that different from each other, they just happen to stand on different sides of the law. Carrying the film on his shoulders, youthful-looking Toma Ikuta, already established as a TV and movie star, plays with energetic abandon the role of blundering Reiji who gets himself into every kind of imaginable mess and always comes on top, his rubber face changing expressions every other second, as he unleashes one tornado after another.

For audiences of the right age (preferably adolescents, or adolescents at heart) and in the right frame of mind (preferably mischievous), this crazy riot of a film might look like a lot of fun, akin to watching animation or playing a video game. Adults taking themselves seriously would do better to look for their entertainment elsewhere.