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Top 10:
1. Izo
2. Happiness of the Katakuris
3. Visitor Q
4. "Box" segment from 3... Extremes
5. Deadly Outlaw Reekah
6. Dead or Alive 2 (which is almost identical to Kitano's "Sonatine" thematically and structurally but it's still awesome)
7. Zebraman
8. City of Lost Souls
9. Ichi the Killer
10. Great Yokai War
Also highly reccomended are:
Family
the Black Society Trilogy (if you have the patience)
Full Metal Yakuza
Fudoh
Demon Pond
Yakuza Demon
Dead or Alive 1
Worth seeing but nothing special:
The Negotiator
Big Bang Love Juvenile A
Agitator
Sabu
Bird People of China
I also sort of like MPD Psycho, Graveyard of Honour, Salaryman Kintaro, Neighbor No. 13... I am not sure if it's available here but Blues Harp is fucking great. Gozu is decent, really weird. Audition is decent. Worth watching for sure.
Films to completely avoid:
Family 2
Silver
Bodyguard Chiba 1-3
Andromedia
Imprint
Dead or Alive 3
One Missed Call
Way to Fight
I tend to his enjoy his more surreal, "out-there" works by the way. He's an interesting director, though a lot of his movies suffer from being too long and with long patches of dullness. His early films are almost all yakuza movies, and I'm pretty sure a little less than half of his films have actually been released here. My top 10 is more of a personal top 10, obviously; his most popular works are easily Ichi, Audition, Imprint, One Missed Call and Gozu -- and 4 out of 5 of those don't really do much for me, compared to his greater efforts. I guess it's just best to dip in and watch whatever you think sounds most interesting, I doubt you'll find two Miike fans who agree on everything.. I mean the dude has like 80 films.
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