Takashi Miike

Last Life in the Universe, which Pen-Ek Ratanaruang directed in 2003, carries Takashi Miike among its players. Having described the film's strange, enclosed atmosphere, Ryan Gilbey said how easily that atmosphere is broken, and named what breaks it: in-jokes pointing at Ichi the Killer, which Miike directed, and which the writer found pointless. The reference was built into the casting itself, since Ichi the Killer's lead Tadanobu Asano and its director Miike act together in this one. So what attaches to Miike is not a judgement of his acting but his presence working as a quotation, and a critic counting that quotation a flaw.