Tag

Title: Tag

Director: Sion Sono

Released: 2015

Starring: Reina Triendl, Mariko Shinoda, Erina Mano, Yuki Sakurai, Aki Hiraoka, Ami Tomite

Plot: Mitsuko (Triendl) a shy school girl finds her life thrown into chaos when she survives the massacre of her classmates during a class field trip, which is only the start of the weird and strange journey she now finds herself on

Review: After delivering a one two punch with his previous releases “Why Don’t You Play In Hell” and “Tokyo Tribe” there was certainly a level of excitement in how director Sion Sono would follow it up, more so when both films were so different from each other let much pretty much anything out there highlighting once more his unique approach to film making which has unsurprisingly seen him drawing comparisons to Takashi Miike’s outlaw period.

Opening with the massacre of a group of school girls by an “Evil Dead” style ominious wind which somehow has the ability to tear coaches in half and randomly decapitate anyone who gets in its way, with Sono perhaps in some way trying to beat his own record for school girl he set with the memorable subway sequence in “Suicide Club”. From this opening though things only get progressively more weird and surreal as Mitsuko now starts find herself moving from one bloody set piece to the next which was certainly hinted at with the trailer and which is certainly delivered on here and more.

Considering what starts off a seemingly straightforward soon mutates into something much different I will warn now Spoilers ahead as Sono once here has crafted something not only unique but equally a pain in the ass to attempt to explain which I will obviously attempt now.

Not content just to make another schoolgirl massacre movie, with “Tag” he truly catches the audience off guard as Misuko finds herself on a surreal journey which she constantly finds herself suddenly being thrust into different situations which sees her one moment running away from a high school massacre being carried out by the heavily armed teachers to the next moment being married to a groom with a pigs head. Some how Sono manages to pull the same trick which David Lynch has hung the best part of his career on by managing to somehow hold our attention for this ride even if at time you really have no idea if Sono knows the direction is going with the film and perhaps just making it up as he goes.

Taking inspiration from Yusuke Yamada’s 2001 novel which sees people who share the same surname being hunted down and which was turned into an ambitious five movie series. Here though we are given a world populated seemingly only by women, with the only men being the aforementioned pig man hybrid which is certainly a departure from the source material while retaining the theme of characters having to continiously run to ensure their survival which really is what ties the various characters Misuko finds herself suddenly turned into while the worlds slowly begin to blend together as the film builds to a frustratingly disappointing final reveal.

For the most part its an entertaining and highly unique ride we are taken on here with Sono walking a line between often amusingly over the top grindhouse splatter and arthouse style plotting which here somehow works as we switch from scenes of feminist solidarity to scenes of a wedding massacre or mass schoolgirl slaughter and perhaps because of these constant switches the film certainly holds the audiences attention no doubt as much as its baffling them. Still this is not a film intended for the mainstream especially when Sono is clearly crafting a film made of moments which intrest him and perhaps with a more cynical eye could just been seen as three half baked projected stitched together by with visceral imagery and sheer randomness.

Certainly there is an attempt to build a workable multiverse theory to justify the changes in scene of the fact that the actress playing Miksuko changes with each new setting, a transition certainly made easier by Mariko Shinoda and Erina Mano being as capable leading ladies as Reina Triendl able to carry a sense of familiarity between the three personas while helped further by Yuki Sakurai constant guiding presence throughout the film. At the same time to have schoolgirls justify the deep thinking of how this world work is alittle hard to take as seriously as Sono hoped it would, but atleast he throws in a random Gator attack to hold our attention.

While this might not be his best film to date, there is certainly enough to keep things entertaining while its tight run time only helps it further. However if this is your first experience with Sono’s work you might want to check out the likes of “Tokyo Tribe” or “Love Exposure” to understand his appeal as a director but this is still a fun if completely random watch all the same even if the pay off is weak.

Tokyo Tribe

Title:  Tokyo Tribe

Director: Sion Sono
Released: 2014
Starring: Ryohei Suzuki, Young Dais, Seino Nana, Ryuta Sato, Shoko Nakagawa, Yosuke Kubozuka, Riki Takeuchi, Takuya Ishida, Shunsuke Daito, Yui Ichikawa, Shoto Sometani, Denden, Hideo Nakano, Bernard Ackah, Hitomi Katayama, Kokone Sasaki, Mao Mita, Yoshihiro Takayama

Plot: In an alternate vision of Tokyo, the city has been divided up by street gangs collectively known as the Tokyo Tribes who co-exist in an uneasy state of peace, one which is soon shattered by crime boss Big Buppa (Takeuchi)

Review:  While many of the original outlandish and controversial directors such as Takashi Miike have mellowed with age its kind of comforting to see that there are directors like Sion Sono who is still carving his path as a truly original voice in Asian cinema. Having previously given us suicide cults, killer hair extensions and the hooters version of a fish shop to barely scratch the surface of some of the randomness that his films to date have covered.  I guess that he would attempt a hip-hop musical version of “The Warriors” which I guess might be the best way of describing the randomness he gives us here.  

Based on the Manga series by Santa Inoue, this adaptation is shot with a combination of hip-hop excess and hyper-kinetic cinematography, its once again another unique world view that Sono gives us here, right from the opening rap which introduces this world as a grandma works the decks. It’s also in this scene that we get our first introduction to the varied gangs of this version of Tokyo with Buppa’s son Mera (Ryohei) tracing out the territories on the naked flesh of a naïve female cop who attempted to arrest him as he rakes his knife from her breast to her butt.

Unquestionably its once again a colorful group of characters that we get here, while the sheer number of players however does mean that only the most outlandish of these characters prove to be memorable as many slip into the background unless actively doing something to further the plot at that particular moment. However whenever Takeuchi is on the screen all attention is drawn straight to him, as his crime boss Buppa seems to have been inspired by every crime boss from Tony “Scarface” Montana through to Durant from  “Darkman” as seen by his cigar box of severed fingers. Here Takeuchi somehow manages to crank up his usual snarling style several more notches than his usual craziness as he commands the screen every time he’s on, whether he’s groping his amply breasted wife or jerking off with a black dildo he’s a fantastically cartoonish creation and one which Takeuchi seems to be having a ball playing.  While Buppa might have made for a suitable big baddie on his own, much of the heavy lifting required to maintain his empire is handled by equally psychotic sons the aforementioned bleached blonde Mera while his other son languishes in “A Clockwork Orange” inspired room of living furniture.

While the film might be a hip-hop musical in Japanese, a language whose suitability for the musical style is debatable, especially going off the frequently droning tone that most of the raps take here which is more worrying when you consider the amount of actual rappers amongst the cast. That being said even if you’re not a hip-hop fan it never overwhelms the film to point where it is unenjoyable for the non-fans.  That being said around the halfway point Sono seemingly loses faith in the concept and instead opts to turn the film into an all-out kung-fu spectacle as the rapping is changed out for stylised ass kicking.

Action wise if you were impressed by what he brought to the screen previously in “Why Don’t You Play In Hell” here he cranks up the energy even further to create some great set pieces including a showdown in a room which hides a giant fan which is put to great use thinning out most of the cast, while we also get a sadly too brief Bruce Lee homage and a character being turned into a human pin cushion via a dozen samurai swords to the chest. True none of these scenes are aiming for realism, as instead Sono aims to only add to his ongoing spectacle but when shot with such a sense of chaotic fun as it is here, such things hardly matter.

Perhaps due to the sheer amount of characters and muddled plotting it wasn’t until I watched this film for the second time that I was able to appreciate it, having been left with a sense of indifference after my initial viewing. Perhaps more flawed than some of his other films, this is still a highly unique film from a director who continues to prove himself as an original and exciting force in Asian cinema, making it little surprise that critics / Asian cinema fans continue to draw comparisons between him and Takashi Miike even if perhaps Sono is barely pushing the boundaries of taste in the same way that Miike did during his outlaw years. In the meantime though this is another great entry into an already impressive body of work, even if perhaps it fails to reach the same levels of some of his more recent films, this is still an experience worth having.

Why Don't You Play In Hell

Title: Why Don’t You Play In Hell

Director: Sion Sono
Released: 2013
Starring: Jun Kunimura, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Fumi Nikaido, Tomochika, Hiroki Hasegawa, Gen Hoshino

Plot: Ten years ago, the Kitagawa yakuza clan led an assault against rival don Muto (Kunimura), which saw Muto’s wife (Tomochika) being imprisoned. The retaliation for this attack would leave the Kitagawa clan in ruins and their top hitman Ikegmai (Tsutsumi) wounded. Muto however was left more concerned that his daughter Mitsuko’s tootpaste commercial was axed due to his criminal activities being exposed. Now Ikegami has taken over the Kitagawa clan vowing revenge, while Muto is more concerned about the imminent release of his wife and for her to see Mitsuko (Nikaido) star in her first movie. Here we meet “The Fuck Bombers” and enthusiastic group of wannabe filmmakers, whose dreams stretch well beyond their means who find themselves drawn into a madcap scheme to film the climactic battle between the two Yakuza clans.

 

Review: Right now having read the plot for this movie, you no doubt been left scratching you head as to how any of it could possibly make any kind of sense, much like the prospect I once more found myself in how I could actually start to review this movie. This is film making not for the faint hearted while at the same time this remains too much of a fascinating film to not attempt to get some form of thoughts down.

I first heard about this film through Jess over at "French Toast Sunday" and which is based on a screenplay written by director Sion Sono 15 years ago it feels almost like a tribute to sort of Yakuza epic he perhaps dreamed of making as a younger film maker, while he describes it as “an action film about the love of 35mm” making it as much of a film about the love of film making as it is of the Yakuza dramas it parodies.

Opening with the young Misuko performing in her toothpaste commercial which it soon becomes clear as the film progresses forms the unusual epicentre of this universe, as even ten years after it was axed it remains a shared memory with characters frequently bursting into spontaneous enactments of the commercial whenever mentioned. At the same time we are also introduced to the fuck bombers led by the eternally enthusiastic Hirata (Hasegawa) whose bring a who new meaning to the word Guerrilla filmmaker as they shot on the fly, incorporating anything they find of interest into their film projects which generally resemble budget remakes of Bruce Lee movies. This is of course we see the young Mitsuko stumbling into the aftermath of a failed Yakuza attack and the bodies of the gangsters her mother has just recently dispatched off, the floor filled with blood which suddenly turns into a warped slip and slide. This essentially is the getting off point for the film as things certainly only get weirder and more random from this point onwards.

While the film is multi-threaded in its construction for the most part it resolves around Misuko who in the ten years which have passed as gone from being a sweet little girl into a rebellious teen who having run away from one film production, now heads off again picking up the wide eyed Koji (Hoshino) to play her pretend boyfriend and later to pass off to her father as the only director she will work with despite not knowing the first thing about movie making. While Sono could have easily based the film around his feisty leading lady, his ambition much like the Fuck Bombers is seemingly limitless, as he finds times to work in ample time for the various other subplots at play such as Ikegmai taking over as head of his yakuza clan who he’s changed from their tailored suits to instead favouring komodo’s through to the Fuck Bombers who are just about ready to call time on their dream as the group is faced with the reality that they aren’t going to make the masterpiece they feel they are destined to make only to soon find themselves the answer to Koji’s prayers.

The film moves with such frenzied pace it hard to believe that the film has the generous run time, while some might be a little frustrated that the film spends the first thirty minutes setting the film up only to then skip ten years into the future. Sono however shoots the film with such high energy and inventiveness it envelops you to the point where you never question the frequently illogical or more surreal moments that are scattered throughout the film. True these moments have frequently been the trademark of Soto’s films

Needless to say the real draw here is the anarchic finale which has rightfully drawn comparisons to Kill Bill’s house of blue leaves showdown, even though here it is certainly not shot with any of the artistic flair that Yuen Wo Ping brought with his fight choreography, but instead here Sono aims for frenzied enthusiasm as blood flies in arterial sprays, limbs lopped off and a body count which easily goes into double figures as he finds ever more inventive ways for the two rival yakuza to dispatch each other. While all this is going on we also have Hirata screaming directions and even stopping an opening skirmish and requesting that everyone go back to their places so that he can reshoot it. Unquestionably it’s an exciting sequence and one only held back by the use of CGI for most of the blood effects.

Easily one of the more accessible films in the directors back catalogue, this is a truly unique and high energy entry point to his work, while it stands truly on its own merits for its fierce originality as it remains another film to be experienced to truly appreciate what could certainly be considered one of the most fiercely original films of recent years.