Taipei as Shinjuku's other

Mukokuseki (literally, “nation-less”), is the practice of crossing, hybridization, and co-production. This chapter focuses on the concept of mukokuseki in the spatial imagination of Japanese gangster films or the yakuza genre, with a focus on the representation of Taipei. It consists of three parts: mukokuseki as a mode of production and urban representation; Taipei as an ambivalent site for mukokuseki ventures; and finally, Taiwan New Cinema scenes as desirable locations/edges for the stylistic reorientation of contemporary Japanese cinema.