The movie follows two street gangs in Koenji, Tokyo that are at constant odds with each other. One gang consists of Chineses while the others are local Japaneses. Both sides have ups and downs in the war but none are willing to give up their turf. At some point they try to put up a truce but the two gang's translators talk to each other and have sinister plans to keep the war going. At the same time, there is a sort of Romeo and Juillet plot going on with a Chinese girl falling in love with a Japanese girl.
Being a big fan of most of Sion Sono's work, I was very excited that he was able to patch up this long lost work of his into and actual movie. I also told myself that my favourite Sono movies seem to be the really long ones, so I had good hopes for the feature. Love Exposure and Cold Fish are long and very well stringed together. This one is long and very oddly put together. It's obvious that this movie spent a long time in the editing both since there are a lot of awkward cuts and scene transitions. The quality of filming could also be a element that some would find very hard to endure for two hours and forty minutes. But I will acknowledge that this was filmed in 1995 with a seemingly cheap camera. So this is one of Sono's earliest films. It was fine for me, but might be hard for others. I was also disappointed when I seem to recognize some music tracks from Cold Fish, on a few occasions by that. the movies still has it's great moments of dark humour and bloody violence like most of Sono's work but they are too many long and boring scenes in between them which almost killed the movie for me. So in the end, I had put my hopes up, and I got disappointed. This is not an actual bad film. It just needed to be edited more.
If this is your first Sion Sono, go take a look at Cold Fish, Love Exposure, Strange Circus, Suicide Club and Guilty of Romance to get a better feel of what his movies are all about.
Being a big fan of most of Sion Sono's work, I was very excited that he was able to patch up this long lost work of his into and actual movie. I also told myself that my favourite Sono movies seem to be the really long ones, so I had good hopes for the feature. Love Exposure and Cold Fish are long and very well stringed together. This one is long and very oddly put together. It's obvious that this movie spent a long time in the editing both since there are a lot of awkward cuts and scene transitions. The quality of filming could also be a element that some would find very hard to endure for two hours and forty minutes. But I will acknowledge that this was filmed in 1995 with a seemingly cheap camera. So this is one of Sono's earliest films. It was fine for me, but might be hard for others. I was also disappointed when I seem to recognize some music tracks from Cold Fish, on a few occasions by that. the movies still has it's great moments of dark humour and bloody violence like most of Sono's work but they are too many long and boring scenes in between them which almost killed the movie for me. So in the end, I had put my hopes up, and I got disappointed. This is not an actual bad film. It just needed to be edited more.
If this is your first Sion Sono, go take a look at Cold Fish, Love Exposure, Strange Circus, Suicide Club and Guilty of Romance to get a better feel of what his movies are all about.