Freshly off into the start of TIFF between now and the next two weeks, director Miike Takashi‘s latest vampire horror craze, Yakuza Apocalypse is now gearing up for another share of exclusive festival screenings before hitting U.S. theaters next month. Ichihara Hayato and Lily Franky star at the head of this fantastic tale of a lowly Yakuza subservient who finds himself in bigger shoes to fill…and apparently even bigger wings. These two and more coupled with Indonesian import, action star Yayan Ruhian joining in on the fun as a hired assassin, Yakuza Apocalypse definitely promises something entertaining for fans who love Miike and expect no less than the usual ultraviolent and batshit insanity that ensues in a Miike film.
Kamiura (Lily Franky) is not your typical yakuza boss: he’s a kindly man who dotes on the locals in his ‘hood and extends life-saving loans to small businesses in order to keep the big corporations out. But when a Django-esque gunslinger in seventeenth-century Spanish garb comes to town, Kamiura is exposed for what he truly is: a vampire! Soon, Kamiura’s young protegé Kagayama (Hayato Ichihara) is invested with his mentor’s powers, and takes to the streets with a new gang made up of regular citizens who have sprouted fangs and are ready to fight for their turf.
The film is poised for screenings in Toronto during its TIFF run as well as in Austin, Texas for Fantastic Fest which starts on September 24 while Samuel Goldwyn Films preps the wide release on October 9. As such, we now have a new red band trailer as well as a Fantastic Fest trailer just below to take in all you can!
