Tokyo Tribe |
Japan • 2014 • 116m •
   • Directed by: Sion Sono. • Starring: Ryôhei Suzuki, Young Dais, Nana Seino, Shunsuke Daitô, Takuya Ishida, Yui Ichikawa, Bernard Ackah, Joey Beni, Arata Matsuura, Yûki Ishii, Makoto Sakaguchi, Kokone Sasaki, Hideo Nakano. • Music by: B.C.D.M.G..     Five years after the Shibuya riots, the Tribes of Tokyo have been enjoying a period of relative peace, until Kim and two other members of the Musashino Saru intrude on the territory of the Wu-Ronz in Bukuro. Mera, the leader of Wu-Ronz kills the three Saru, under the assumption that they were members of the Shibuya Saru. Two days later, after searching for who killed his friends, Musashino Saru member Kai runs into Mera. Old friends in their high school days, the two get into a confrontation that ends up leaving Tera, the leader of Musashino Saru, dead and setting the stage for violence between the Tribes.
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Review:
OKAY, acting was... well, its hard to tell. From one angle each character would have half of their dialogue in rap. But when it comes to a film like this, one can be forgiving because it's mostly just trying to express a message rather than a film straight up about some acting. So i didn't mind that the characters were all jacked up on their own principles and egos. No one really stands out except maybe the 'sumnisumi' or whatever the hell her name was (had glitchy hard sub). Everyone else i guess acted the way they were supposed to act (presuming in regards to the manga) so nothing really special. No Oscar nominations here LOL u know what i mean?
Really was digging the cinematography. City representations of nightlife was pretty cool, semi spot on. The movie did feel like it was on a budget though the characters were always enough to keep your mind guessing. really enjoyed the shots whereby the camera follows the character and things just happen around him. It's like the world froze while they did that. there was some really strange scenes however but nothing too distasteful - it's to be expected what with all the smuttiness and perversion. But yes they did far too many revisits to old locations which was disappointing. And the occasionally really out of place character shots whereby the after a dialogue scene the camera very quickly cuts away to a shot of an not overly important character and that character does something that adds to the archetype or style of the personality being represented.
The plot idea was pretty sick but the pacing was quite all over the place. Lots of overbearingly long expository dialogue in the form of rap (ill go more in detail later.) The idea of warring tribes is cool but not really explored, more like introduced and then mashed together. The bad guy in this film is really messed up which is typical of the style but very out of place in terms of rap. like his character or the people in his crew didn't really necessarily need to be rappers. But ill say it does lend to the overall blend. The plot was mostly predictable too, only not when some weird moments were occurring like the beatboxing maid bits and the fastid strokings of a golden dildo. Ending was totally lame though.
Script, okay, rap too. I can't fully comment on this because I know I'll be semi- wrong because of the translation. But the rap was OK. What dragged it down was the fact that most of it was expository dialogue. Basically explaining exactly what was happening. And then so much patriarchal archetypal rap. The introduction part was great, you really got a sense of how different each tribe was, through their visual displays and their rap style and beat style. But as the characters crossed over it felt less like a collab and more like the awkward clash of another mans hand touching your buttocks. You feel uncomfortable and it's just plain wrong. There wasn't really much to say on this except the way they depicted chillhop rap was funny albeit quite inaccurate.
The music was however not up to standard for a film like this. I honestly expected a well thought out selection of beats and breaks were going to astound me but I was ashamed to find out it was focused mostly and solely on the uniqueness of a group among groups of interloping characters. There were some straight out terrible industrial experimental beats during some of the bad guy scenes and man were they industrially experimentally bad.
I wished there were more fight scenes that were more choreographed. Some flashy stuff but mostly one hit per guy sort of fights which can get pretty boring to watch. If it was anything like crow zero now that would be awesome. The rapping throughout a movie could have been done well had the characters been written more thoroughly and less 'this is my style and this is my take on the situation'. The flow separations are cool though it never really got a time to shine through because of the whole bad guy scenes. Too many of those. But great characters, awesome main character; a fighting cute girl who can rap and showed her boobies on screen - thats a real woman im telling ya. Great costumes and really over the top stereotypes. Lots of fun watching this in the sense of sight. In the sense of sight there was always something happening so you could probably still be entertained had the film been silent.
Yeah 610. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who likes rap unless they were begging me to show them a film about Japanese rappers who rap in different styles, do manga type music things that is illustrated with lots of colour. If i happen to stumble in on someone watching the film I would gladly sit through it again with them to see their reactions and to make comments on how absurdly inane all the scenes were.
Review by callumniatory from the Internet Movie Database.
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