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The film's protagonist, Ishimatsu (Goro Kishitani), is loosely based on the real-life criminal Rikio Ishikawa, although his story has been moved forward in time to the 1980s and '90s. Ishimatsu is a particularly unappealing character: a paranoid, brutish, hot-tempered lout who doesn't seem capable of expressing his emotions except through rape, assault, and murder. Director Takashi Miike approaches his story with a cold sense of detachment and doesn't make much of an effort to get inside Ishimatsu's head. Instead, Miike revels in the excessiveness of Ishimatsu's lifestyle, including his self-destructive violence and drug-addled craziness. This isn't a movie to watch for in-depth character development or profound sociological insight, although Ishimatsu could be considered a symbol of a nation in turmoil. It's also not a movie to watch if you want to avoid displays of misogyny, and Ishimatsu's common-law wife, Chieko (Narimi Arimori), isn't sufficiently developed as a character to make sense of her part in the relationship. The film doesn't even have the heady sense of throwing convention to the wind that you can find in Miike's The Happiness of the Katakuris, for example, since it's a relatively straightforward gangster film. But it's still a pretty solid effort with just enough over-the-top moments to keep it from becoming too conventional. Miike doesn't go completely overboard at every chance, but he does seize the opportunity to show torrents of blood, spurting vomit, and several examples of Ishimatsu behaving like a lunatic. So if you're a fan of Abel Ferrara and Martin Scorsese's bloodier moments, for example, you might enjoy this film.