RAINY DOG is another Yakuza story from the prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike and an unconnected follow-up of sorts to his SHINJUKU TRIAD SOCIETY. This one tells the tale of a Japanese assassin who now lives in Taiwan, eking out a living performing jobs for a local crime boss. The film has a grim and depressing feel to it, and is also very slow paced without much of the directorial style or vibrant action we've come to expect from the director. Instead it's a world of nihilism and nastiness, full of driving rain and abuse. The film's heart involves the main character's relationship with his son, an estranged boy who is thrown into his care without warning. I found the experience dull and dreary and lacking imagination, not one of the director's better films.

Rainy Dog is the second film in Takashi Miike's Black Society Trilogy that focuses on foreign gangsters with inner struggles that are trying to find a purpose in life. Despite a similar topic, Rainy Dog is very different from the first film Shinjuku Triad Society.The first movie focused on Chinese-born Japanese gangsters and police officers that were fighting each other in Tokyo's flashy suburb. This movie here focuses on a Japanese gangster who had to leave the country and settle in Taiwan after committing a crime.While the first movie focuses on a more complex plot, includes numerous characters and relies on quite brutal action sequences, this second film is almost an antithesis of the predecessor. Rainy Dog focuses on the solitary main character who works as a hit-man for a local gangster boss after his Japanese boss got killed in his absence. He ultimately tries to run away from his depressing everyday life. The solitary main character is followed by a mute boy that was dropped at his desolate dwelling by a woman the main character had sexual intercourse with many years ago but whose name he doesn't even remember and who claims that he is his son. This unusual duo teams up with a prostitute that wants to start a new life. The trio gets tracked down by three parties: another Japanese hit-man who was asked to avenge the crime that forced the main character to leave his home country, the friends and family members of a guy the main character executed in Taiwan and even the Taiwanese gangster boss the main character was working for in the beginning of the movie that decided to betray him.Rainy Dog is a quite revealing title because the main character and those who follow him behave, feel and run way like beaten dogs. In addition to this, it's almost constantly raining throughout the entire movie which adds to the desperate, melancholic and monotonous tone of the movie. Most scenes are set on abandoned beaches, in dark back alleys, in muddy forests and in small impersonal dwellings. This lethargic atmosphere is a little bit harder to digest than the vivid predecessor but it gives the film a very own style. The minimalist acting, the short dialogues and the desolate landscapes only add to this unique approach. The acting performances might be restricted at first sight but that was clearly the director's intention and it's actually quite interesting how the emotionless main character very slowly opens up to not only accepting but even feeling sympathy for the boy that might be his son and the prostitute that is his soulmate.The gloomy atmosphere from start to finish leads to a very fitting ending that you wouldn't get in a Hollywood movie and that even some of the actors involved disliked as you can hear and see in the additional interview included on this disc of the Black Society Trilogy package that has been released earlier this year. Personally, I really liked this movie's conclusion.In my opinion, Rainy Dog convinces with its profound atmosphere and three main characters that are as flawed as they are fascinating. The downside of the movie is its plot that is average at best and the mostly static action sequences that fail to add some much-needed punch to the lethargic movie. Fans of original Yakuza flicks and director Takashi Miike should give this film a try. Occasional fans of gangster movies can skip the second part of the Black Society Trilogy.

Though I did not quite understand: - why that killer was after the main anti-hero, - why the anti-hero was walking about with his gun through the streets (taking it out too early before real shootouts) as if it were a simple umbrella, and - why there is a scene with the mobsters who are firing at the car at close range and hit nothing (!), the movie is still good.I agree to nearly every comment here (as per 08/11/07). It's in such films, when the talent of a director gets revealed. If you can make a captivating movie without rushing tempo, gallons of blood, all-out sex, and stylish trashy dialogues, then you are not another glamorous flicker but have something substantial to offer the viewers.The main character of the movie is, of course, Mr Rain. It floods, leaks, spills, pours, streams, evaporates, bubbles, hits, drops, and runs. The scene with the rain against the hot iron is the most impressive. The first time I saw it, I did not quite get it, thinking that it was a kind of special effect.8 out of 10, it could have been better, I guess (more different types of soothing music and a wrecked car would have been suitable). Thank you for attention.

Being a mild fan of Takashi Miike, I was excited to find this noir-like Yakuza film. In many ways I got what I expected, which was the problem. Sho Aikawa, from the Miike's DOA trilogy, plays the cold blooded hit-man with, of course, very little to say. He lives in Tapai, a place which is run by gangs and, assuming from this movie, has rain coming down all the time. We meet the main protagonist as he discovers that he has a son, who refuses to even talk at all, and our loner assassin is forced to take care of the child. He later befriends a prostitute who wants to get out of this rainy hell, who, along with the child, becomes an agitator for change in the hit-man's tired lifestyle.Interspersed through the film are a considerable amount of violent scenes but they are done in a classy manner, with very little Miike excess. This is very befitting of this movie's subdued style. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few notable scenes, this film goes in all the directions that one would expect from yet another movie about a quiet hit-man on the road of redemption. But if you can look past the absence of originality, you'll find a moody Takashi Miike film with very little compromise.6/10