In the age of streaming, there is simply too much content to capture everything. Dear auteurs post fascinating works of art every two weeks, but with countless services and non-stop new stuff, a lot of it gets lost in the shuffle. Connect is coming to Disney Plus and Hulu from beloved Japanese director Takashi Miike, and it would have been a hit if anyone had heard about it.
With more than 100 films under his belt, it’s fair to call Takashi Miike one of the most iconic Japanese filmmakers of all time. Audition, Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins, several fascinating anime and video game adaptations, and countless other instant classics make Miike’s filmography fascinating. His latest project is a streaming series with a fascinating pitch.
Connect is about an urban cryptid who lives a semi-normal life under the name Ha Dong-Soo. One night, Dong-Soo is kidnapped by a pair of organ hunters. After hours of surgery, Dong-Soo’s body instantly heals and begins to function without his organs. In his flight, he leaves an eye behind, and it ends up in another’s skull. Unfortunately, Dong-Soo occasionally gets glimpses of vision through the disembodied eye. As the self-confidently absurd story unfolds, it becomes clear that Dong-Soo’s eye is in the possession of a dangerous criminal and his visions will be the key to solving the case. Dong-Soo is a functional immortal with a spiritual connection to his missing eye. The show is a murder mystery led by a body horror superhero directed by Yakuza Apocalypse at the helm. That pitch should pretty effectively communicate whether this show will appeal.
Connect is not interested in explaining almost every aspect of the narrative. It’s all told in subtle detail and big bold absurd concepts. Dong-Soo, known online as Connect for unknown reasons, is hacked to pieces over and over again. Connect is more often portrayed as a horror villain, and his response to trauma is suitably nightmarish. Instead of just regrowing severed limbs like Wolverine, Connect’s body extends a mass of tendrils to reattach what was last cut off. Imagine a version of Deadpool with no sense of humor or fighting skills and you have the hero of this show. It’s as if every cell in his body is a fully sapient organism with the primary goal of remaining in one piece. As a protagonist, his brooding disposition could make him feel distant, but there’s a lot of humanity in Connect’s bizarre form. However, the show isn’t just about an immortal trying to make a life for himself, it’s also about a killer on the loose.
The actual driving plot off Connect follows the attempt to catch a serial killer. A pair of detectives work hard to get to the bottom of the bizarre murders, but they come up empty. The killer makes strange references to spiritual matters, they seem obsessed with astrology, and their methods are uniquely monstrous. Since the police are effectively clueless, most of the actual detective work falls to Connect. Dong-Soo is committed to solving the case for more than morality since he still wants his eye back. The killer seems largely unaware that his eye could be a danger to him, but he is far too engrossed in killing to consider the possibility. No aspect of the show is free from Miike’s unique vision.
The idea of a spiritual connection between a person and their organs is bizarre enough in itself, but the fact that the character enjoying the questionable power is a humanoid monster makes it more interesting. Connect does his best to live a normal life and he can pass without a trace as long as he is never publicly harmed. The show obliquely refers to Connect as a new form of human, as if he is the next step in the evolution of the species. There are so many weird, big ideas floating around the series that rarely warrant a second thought. It follows the logic of a dream more than anything else. To really enjoy the show, one must be ready to accept a lot of mud and a lot of logically incongruous concepts. It asks a lot of the audience, but it also drags them at the speed of sound to countless scenes they couldn’t find anywhere else.
Connect is a detective show, a supernatural horror series and a story about a human monster trying to live a normal life all wrapped into one. Does everything work together? Not really, but that’s part of what makes it so magical. Connect refuses to explain itself, but it has a ton of fun with its weird concepts. Fans of weird stories will fall in love Connect. It’s a show that starts off strong and only continues to expand as it goes on. Connect is available on Hulu.
