Charming Brazilian thug Mario is in love with Kei (Michele Reis- Fallen Angels, Fong Sai Yuk, A Kid from Tibet), so much so, that he will not allow deportation to take her away. Even if it means mounting a rescue by helicopter and automatic machine gun. As the two try to escape the underworld and get out of Tokyo, they are hampered by a Chinese Triad baddie, Ko, who has his eye on Kei. Their efforts to obtain money for phony passports involve getting a crew together and robbing Ko, but the heist goes wrong when they stumble upon Ko doing a drug deal with a deadly Yakuza named Fushimi. Unfortunately they come away from the heist with Fushimi's cocaine, further putting the young lovers in over their heads. Vodka swilling Russian mobsters. Cockfighting. Ping Pong. Brazilian hookers. Midgets brushing their teeth with cocaine. Kidnapping. And some reckless love at the heart of it all.

City of Lost Souls is a lush, frenetic romp. I guess if comparisons were to be made, it is in the same league as True Romance, Love and .45, Wild at Heart and maybe Perdita Durango. It has the same energy and affection for two protagonists who live on the darker side of life, a modern pop-punk Bonnie and Clyde. Fans of those films will be won over by Cities over the top style and characters. Here we get a film who's tone is so amped up and anarchic that things like CGI cockfights, booby trapped ping pong matches, and a swirlie death framed from inside a toilet P.O.V. (complete with turds floating in the foreground) seem completely natural. Though certainly inventive and entertaining, the film does fail on one major point, it doesn't flesh out its leads in love very well. Mario and Kei are an eye-catching couple, but there is little backstory and only a couple of moments over the course of the whole film when one glimpses some kind of chemistry between them. Luckily they are surrounded with enough crazed pirate TV crews, indifferent cops, amiable friends, sympathetic hookers, and maniacal gangsters to keep things very, very interesting.

While Miike has certainly gone much further over the top and presented wilder films with even more flesh and electricity, City of Lost Souls is still a decent film in his resume. Disjointed but decent. Considering his more notorious and violent gangster films in overdrive, like Ichi the Killer, Fudoh, and Dead or Alive, the Miike behind City of Lost Souls is a bit more restrained. Hard to believe that a film that in its opening moments features its two lead characters dropping from a helicopter and crashing onto the city streets like Warner Bros cartoon characters is "restrained", but for Miike it is. Still, his signature of unpredictability, stylistic action, and imagination is there. City of Lost Souls features a pleasant mix of cultures, a mini United Nations of underworld figures from Brazil, to China, Japan, Russia, and so forth, all kept afloat by Miike's manic energy.

The DVD: Chimera. Region One. Except in price (it is more affordable), seems to be directly comparable to the Japanese R2 release and certainly much better than the non-anamorphic, barebones HK edition.

Picture: Widescreen. Anamorphic. The film looks pretty good, print suffers from no wear, no dirt, spots, or scratches, no technical flubs like artifacts, pixellation, or glaring edge enhancement. While sharpness, color and contrast are all in acceptable shape, it still suffers from something I've noticed a lot recently in Japanese films on DVD. Newer works like Kairo, Uzumaki, Battle Royale, and Audition seem to lean a bit softer and have muddier, duller contrast than most international releases. Maybe it has something to do with the actual film production materials? Not a major concern really, certainly overall the film transfers are all still fine, but it is just worth noting for the unaware.

Sound: Dolby Digital Stereo 5.1 Surround, Japanese and a little English, Russian, Chinese, and Portuguese language with optional yellow English subtitles. Nice clean track with significant punch in the music and fx.

Extras: 24 Chapters--- Liner Notes--- Nice Miike Bio and Filmography--- Trailers: City of Lost Souls (theatrical, TV, 3 teasers) Audition (US theatrical and Japanese), Mansion of the Black Rose, Blackmail is My Life, and The Happiness of the Katakuris.--- "Escape from Tokyo" an appropriately venomous City of Lost Souls quiz.--- "Making of City of Lost Souls" (5:39), a series of behind the scenes vignettes showing Miike directing, which is amazing in how normal everything is. Watching his films, one imagines behind the scenes of a Miike production would have midget fire breathers on the backs of pit bulls wearing tutus doing crystal meth off of hermaphrodite S&M Nazi's. But, in actuality, its all very standard.

Conclusion: While it belongs on the "B" list of Miike works, it is still an energy filled and admirable piece of off kilter entertainment. The transfer is pretty damn good, especially when one considers the hit and miss nature of Miikes films on DVD, some getting less than stellar treatment either due to censor cuts, poor prints being used, or general lackluster transfers.