In The City of Lost Souls, as in his myriad of other works -- particularly his masterful Dead or Alive -- Miike populates his film with the sort of two-fisted stylistics that made him popular and that often draw comparisons to the great 1960s maverick Seijun Suzuki: Mario's rescue of Kei obviously takes place in the barren plains of the Mojave desert even though it is labelled "Saitama Prefecture"; a jaw-dropping CG cockfight that lampoons The Matrix; a dwarf who brushes his teeth with a bag full of prize Chinese cocaine; and a Brazilian drug lord whose murder is shot from point of view of the toilet -- complete with a pair of turds floating at the surface. While the film's stylistic bravura might not quite reach the utterly unhinged heights of Dead or Alive, Miike's underlying message is if anything more pointed and direct. While both films deal with the marginalized state of foreigners in Japan's traditional insular society, Lost Souls almost completely focuses on them. Set amid largely garishly lit salsa clubs, cockfighting rings, and smoky whorehouses, one begins to wonder if this is really Tokyo. Japan is portrayed simply as a place with money, limited opportunity, and a multi-ethnic population -- a far cry from the homogenous economic monolith that the government and Japan's right wing tries to project.