Recommend some Takashi Miike...
 

Just off the high of Sukiyaki Western Django (which I hear is not his best, although I loved it), I am looking for other Miike films to watch, only to be bombarded by a huge collection of movies. I am open to suggestions.

There's a lot of worthy material out there for Miike, but here's a few to get you started.

Audition
MPD Psycho
Imprint
The Happiness of The Katakuris
Ichi The Killer
Visitor Q
Izo
The Great Yokai War

To be honest, I've sadly fallen out of keeping up with his work.

The weird "kids" movies that atsonic told me about sounded awesome. A lot of his "horror" films have bothered me (personally).

As was already mentioned:

Audition
Ichi the Killer
Great Yokai War
Visitor Q

audition
happiness of the katkuris
gozu
visitor q
audition
ichi the killer
bird people of china


it's shit at the moment for miike fans in the uk, there hasn't been a new miike film released in the uk in about 2 or 3 years

oh! one more - Zebraman

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.

what a load of crap!

I'm assuming you're saying that me saying dead or alive 2 is similiar to sonatine is the load of crap and not me placing the film at # 6.

So...
Two yakuza films where the action is sidelined for the main section of the film where the violent grown men reenact their childhood by playing with each other, laying on the beach, enjoying simple pleasures, and developing relationships with the locals -- basically, getting back into their childhood mindset... and then coming back for the last 3rd of the film as completely different people, though never able to run away from the problems they had in the 1st part of the film.

So, how is that not similiar? ... Thematically, structurally, in the subdued directing and acting (and even musically if I remember correctly, it's been a while since I saw DoA2), they're extremely similiar. Doesn't make it a ripoff. I love both films! Let's not forget that Miike is a huge Kitano fan as well.

Anyway, DoA2 is really a special film. Shinya Tsukamoto as a magician.

I loved Audition. <---

For some reason Miike has said repeatedly that this one is his favorite film.

He recently said "Big Bang Love, Juvenile A" is his "masterpiece".

It's... alright... it's pretty good but... his masterpiece? He's funny.

if Ichi the Killer is representative than this guy is way overrated.

it's not really

Yeah, it's definitely not. I don't think any one movie is representative actually. Ichi was the first film I saw by him and I thought it was pretty cool but it didn't blow my mind. I had to watch a few of his movies before I was really blown away, and then when I went back to Ichi I realized it was actually really great... just not what I had been expecting I guess.