AUDITION July 9–12
1999. 115 min. NR. South Korea/ Japan, in Japanese with subtitles. Vitagraph Films.
"A great, sick rush with a kicker on the level of The Vanishing." (New York Times)
The film that brought Miike's twisted sensibility to American audiences: a shocking "tortured woman" revenge thriller slyly told from the perspective of her ultimate victim. Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) and James Gunn (Slither) are both huge fans; Eli Roth liked it so much he gave Miike a cameo in Hostel.

GOZU July 16–19
2003. 129 min. NR. Japan, in Japanese with subtitles. Pathfinder Pictures.
"A riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a cow's head." (Film Threat)
From the outer reaches of cinematic weirdness, Gozu's story of a novice gangster tending to an increasingly insane mob boss is just the starting point for a series of darkly comic and utterly surreal incidents in a seemingly sleepy small town. The hilarious opening scene will have you looking over your shoulder for suspicious Chihuahuas. It's all "splendidly entertaining" (Village Voice).

ONE MISSED CALL July 23–26
2003. 111 min. R. Japan, in Japanese with subtitles. Media Blasters.
"A nightmare scenario for the text message generation." (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Miike's take on the standard J-horror tale of dark-haired moppets scuttling about the shadows (think The Grudge or The Ring) is twice as terrifying as any other film in the genre and, ultimately, a strangely poetic vision of familial discord.

THE GREAT YOKAI WAR July 30–Aug. 2
2005. 124 min. PG-13. Japan, in Japanese with subtitles. Media Blasters.
"Strong-stomached 11-year-olds and their stoned baby sitters will love it....A big, silly party." (Boston Globe)
This sprawling epic concerns a war between the world of affable spirit creatures (yokai) and a demon who wants to harness their souls. Intended as a family film (but almost certainly too scary for kids), it features brilliant character designs and a goofy sense of humor that evoke such Hollywood fare as Ghostbusters or Gremlins.

ZEBRAMAN Aug. 6–9
2004. 115 min. NR. Japan, in Japanese with subtitles. Media Blasters.
"Entertaining, madcap comic book spoof." (Variety)
Japanese direct-to-video icon Sho Aikawa is dynamite as the title character in this endlessly imaginative, funny deconstruction of the typical superhero origin story. Half knowing send-up and half heartfelt homage, Zebraman may be Miike's best-natured and most lovable film.

FUDOH: A NEW GENERATION
Aug. 13–16
1996. 98 min. NR. Japan, in Japanese with subtitles. Media Blasters.
"Pure energy and cinematic momentum: blunt, outrageous, and wildly over-thetop, a mad blast of mob melodrama pushed to surreal extremes." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Hermaphrodite assassins. Schoolgirl stripper hit squads. Eight-year-olds with Uzis. A to-the-death clash between the old generation of Japanese gangsters and the next generation of young thugs. Decapitations, geysers of blood, and ultraviolence: Miike in a nutshell.

ICHI THE KILLER Aug. 20–23
2001. 129 min. NR. Japan, Hong Kong/ South Korea, in Japanese/Cantonese/ English with subtitles. Media Blasters.
"Makes one wonder what has happened to that once-famous Japanese sense of understatement." (New York Times)
Completely insane even by Miike's standards, Ichi ostensibly concerns an emotionally stunted pseudo-superhero trained to "kill bad people"—but infamous Japanese actor/rocker/superstar Tadanobu Asano steals the show as a masochistic yakuza determined to confront the assassin.

THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS
Aug. 27–30
2001. 113 min. R. Japan, in Japanese with subtitles. Vitagraph Films.
"Joyously demented." (The Onion)
Miike nailed the one problem with The Sound of Music—it's entirely free of zombies—and set out to rectify the situation. Sleazy conmen, volcanic eruptions, Claymation, karaoke sing-alongs, and an adorable puppy collide with the family-friendly Alpine musical, and the result achieves breathtaking heights of delirium.