{ "id": "epp35k5mdj", "slug": "dead-or-alive-1999-film", "title": "Dead or Alive (DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者) (1999 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "label": "Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films", "label": "1990s films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.crime-dramas-and-gangster-films", "label": "Crime dramas and gangster films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.crime-dramas-and-gangster-films" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "label": "Asia (other) · 1946 to 2000: Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "path": [ { "id": "geo.asia", "label": "Asia (other)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1946", "label": "Asia (other) · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery", "label": "Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Dead or Alive (DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者, Hanzaisha) is Takashi Miike's 1999 Japanese action crime film, first of a trilogy, starring Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi as a Shinjuku detective and gang leader clashing in Kabuki-cho.", "snippet": "Dead or Alive (DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者, Hanzaisha) is Takashi Miike's 1999 Japanese action crime film, first of a trilogy, starring Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi as a Shinjuku detective and gang leader clashing in Kabuki-cho.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.crime-thriller-mystery.1990s-films.crime-dramas-and-gangster-films", "markdown": "# Dead or Alive (DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者) (1999 film)\n\n**Dead or Alive** (*DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者*, *Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha*) is a 1999 Japanese action crime film directed by [Takashi Miike](https://www.edgepedia.org/takashi-miike), in which a Shinjuku police detective and a young gang leader wage a destructive feud in Tokyo's Kabuki-cho entertainment district. It was released in Japan on November 27, 1999, runs 105 minutes, and was distributed by Daiei.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/) The film pairs the actors Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi in leading roles for the first time, and it is the first entry in Miike's hard-violence action trilogy of the same name.[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/dead-or-alive) • [3](https://www.wowow.co.jp/detail/017884)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Original title | DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者 (*Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha*)[1](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/) |\n| Japanese release | November 27, 1999; 105 minutes; distributed by Daiei; rated R15+[1](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/) |\n| Director and writer | Takashi Miike; screenplay by Ichiro Ryu[4](https://s1.thcdn.com/design-assets/documents/arrowfilms/Dead%20or%20Alive%20Trilogy.pdf) |\n| Leads | Show Aikawa as Detective Jojima; Riki Takeuchi as Ryuichi[4](https://s1.thcdn.com/design-assets/documents/arrowfilms/Dead%20or%20Alive%20Trilogy.pdf) |\n| Setting | Kabuki-cho district of Shinjuku, Tokyo[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/dead-or-alive) |\n| Trilogy | First of three films (1999–2002) with the same two lead actors[3](https://www.wowow.co.jp/detail/017884) |\n| Critical scores | Metascore 49 from 9 critic reviews; Rotten Tomatoes 55% Tomatometer, 74% audience score[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dead-or-alive/) • [6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dead-or-alive) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nThe story is set in Kabuki-cho, a Shinjuku district the film portrays as swirling with sex, money, drugs, and violence.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/) After a Chinese mafia boss and a yakuza are killed, Detective Jojima (Show Aikawa) of the Shinjuku police suspects that a young gang seeking to control Kabuki-cho lies behind the incidents and begins investigating.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/) The gang is led by Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi), a third-generation Chinese orphan (中国残留孤児三世) who heads a group of Chinese-born outlaws.[7](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/159727)\n\nJojima's investigation is compromised by his private circumstances: he has borrowed 20 million yen from the Sakurai gang, which controls Kabuki-cho, to pay for surgery for his daughter, who suffers from an incurable illness.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/) Ryuichi's gang plots to steal stimulant drugs that the Sakurai gang intends to trade with the mainland mafia; the raid fails when Jojima's subordinates arrive, and Ryuichi's younger brother Toji is shot down.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/) Burning for revenge, Ryuichi plants a bomb in Jojima's car and kills his wife and daughter before his eyes, turning the two men into blood enemies who face each other in a ferocious gun battle.[1](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/)\n\n## Structure and style\n\nThe film opens with an entire reel of what the International Film Festival Rotterdam's catalog called \"abstract\" action, unreadable as narrative exposition, and ends with a sequence the same catalog said \"has to be seen to be believed.\"[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/dead-or-alive) The seven middle reels carry the cop-versus-gangster story, punctuated by what the catalog described as cruel incidentals and wicked digressions.[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/dead-or-alive) Japanese publicity for a WOWOW broadcast described the film as a flood of image and sound amounting to \"film destruction,\" running from an opening in which ramen spills from a shotgun-blasted man's abdomen to a climax it predicted would remain in Japanese film history.[3](https://www.wowow.co.jp/detail/017884)\n\nCritics have read the film's tonal swings in different ways. A review on the Japanese Film Reviews site described a punk aesthetic typified by the extreme opening and closing sequences, wrapped around a core of serious crime drama, with social commentary on crime, the treatment of women, and immigration.[8](https://www.nichi-eidomain.com/dead-or-alive-1999/) The Kinema Club review connected the outrageous surprise ending to the plight of characters without a place in Japanese society: if they cannot escape the mess, the film blows it up.[9](https://kinemaclub.org/posts/2000-02-26-dead-or-alive)\n\n## Production\n\nTakashi Miike, born in [Osaka Prefecture](https://www.edgepedia.org/osaka-prefecture) in 1960, had made more than 100 films and television series since his 1991 feature debut *Lady Hunter*.[10](https://db.nipponconnection.com/ja/film/2569/dead-or-alive) The screenplay is by Ichiro Ryu, the cinematography by Hideo Yamamoto, who also shot *Hana-Bi*, the music by Koji Endo, and the editing by Yasushi Shimamura.[4](https://s1.thcdn.com/design-assets/documents/arrowfilms/Dead%20or%20Alive%20Trilogy.pdf) The supporting cast includes Renji Ishibashi as the yakuza boss Aoki, Susumu Terajima as Detective Inoue, Ren Osugi as Yan, and Tomorowo Taguchi.[4](https://s1.thcdn.com/design-assets/documents/arrowfilms/Dead%20or%20Alive%20Trilogy.pdf)\n\nThe film was shot on 35mm and screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2000, where the festival catalog called it the only home-grown sensation at the previous year's Tokyo Film Festival and possibly Miike's most experimental film.[2](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/dead-or-alive)\n\n## Reception\n\nCritical response was divided. On Metacritic the film holds a Metascore of 49, based on 9 critic reviews, classified as mixed or average: 4 positive, 3 mixed, and 2 negative.[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dead-or-alive/) The most favorable was V.A. Musetto of the [New York Post](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-york-post) at 88, calling Miike one of the most exciting and versatile directors working; the least favorable was The New York Times at 20, describing \"a soulless compilation of thrills.\"[5](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dead-or-alive/) On Rotten Tomatoes the film shows a 55% Tomatometer from 22 reviews and a 74% audience score from more than 5,000 ratings.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dead-or-alive) Cinegraph aggregates an IMDb rating of 6.7 and a TMDb rating of 6.4.[11](https://cinegraph.org/movies/dead-or-alive-1999)\n\nReviewers repeatedly singled out the same elements. The Seattle Times' Mark Rahner noted that the tamest image in the movie shows a terrified man accidentally breading and deep-frying one of his hands before being shot in a restaurant kitchen.[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dead-or-alive) [The Empire](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-empire) review called it an oblique and frankly surreal tale with extreme violence in which plot, character, and moral are largely missing, but styled with an especially impressive frenetic opening.[12](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/dead-alive-2-review/)\n\n## The trilogy and legacy\n\n*Dead or Alive* is the first of a hard-violence action trilogy in which Takeuchi and Aikawa continued to appear together with changed settings: *Dead or Alive 2: Tobosha* (released December 2, 2000, 97 minutes) and *Dead or Alive: Final* (2002).[3](https://www.wowow.co.jp/detail/017884) • [4](https://s1.thcdn.com/design-assets/documents/arrowfilms/Dead%20or%20Alive%20Trilogy.pdf) Arrow Video, which released the trilogy on Blu-ray, wrote that the three films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terribles of Japanese cinema, each unique in theme and tone and connected only by their two lead actors.[13](https://www.arrowvideo.com/p/dead-or-alive-trilogy-blu-ray/12946746/) A German survey of Japanese cinema credits the film with helping the yakuza genre, by then largely vanished, to a successful comeback.[14](https://tokushima-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/2009546/files/jll_29_4.pdf)\n\n## References\n\n1. [DOA DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者: 作品情報・キャスト・あらすじ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/37949/)\n2. [Dead or Alive, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR 2000)](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2000/films/dead-or-alive)\n3. [DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者, WOWOWオンライン](https://www.wowow.co.jp/detail/017884)\n4. [Three Extremes: Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive Trilogy booklet, Arrow Films](https://s1.thcdn.com/design-assets/documents/arrowfilms/Dead%20or%20Alive%20Trilogy.pdf)\n5. [Dead or Alive, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/dead-or-alive/)\n6. [Dead or Alive, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dead-or-alive)\n7. [DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者, allcinema](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/pdf/159727)\n8. [Dead or Alive (1999), Japanese Film Reviews](https://www.nichi-eidomain.com/dead-or-alive-1999/)\n9. [Dead or Alive, Kinema Club](https://kinemaclub.org/posts/2000-02-26-dead-or-alive)\n10. [DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者, Nippon Connection film database](https://db.nipponconnection.com/ja/film/2569/dead-or-alive)\n11. [Dead or Alive, Cinegraph](https://cinegraph.org/movies/dead-or-alive-1999)\n12. [Dead Or Alive Review, Empire](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/dead-alive-2-review/)\n13. [Dead Or Alive Trilogy Blu-ray, Arrow Video US](https://www.arrowvideo.com/p/dead-or-alive-trilogy-blu-ray/12946746/)\n14. [Der japanische Film: von der amerikanischen Besatzungszeit bis zur Gegenwart, Tokushima University repository](https://tokushima-u.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/2009546/files/jll_29_4.pdf)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1990s films › Crime dramas and gangster films*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/dead-or-alive-1999-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/dead-or-alive-1999-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Dead or Alive (DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者) (1999 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/dead-or-alive-1999-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Dead or Alive (DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者) (1999 film)](https://www.edgepedia.org/dead-or-alive-1999-film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/dead-or-alive-1999-film](https://www.edgepedia.org/dead-or-alive-1999-film). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Dead or Alive (DEAD OR ALIVE 犯罪者) (1999 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/dead-or-alive-1999-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Dead or Alive is Takashi Miike's 1999 Japanese action crime film, first of a trilogy, starring Show Aikawa and Riki Takeuchi as a Shinjuku detective and gang leader clashing in Kabuki-cho." }