Takashi Miike has been making some of the most weirdly entertaining films of the last decade. Between Ichi the Killer and the overtly taboo Visitor Q, one would think that all the corpse-sodomizing and S&M would have drained his artistic abilities. But 2004’s Izo is yet another staple of Miike’s string of mind-scratching motion pictures. [...]

While films often feature wolves stalking under the guise of man, those of wit and quality are a bit more difficult to come by. Be it the newest reference-driven comedy schlock or aimless chick flick, flicks are more quick to grab a piece of the wolf theme’s revenue than do something to really set itself [...]