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+--- Thread: Tokyo Tribe (/showthread.php?tid=3641)
Tokyo Tribe - Drunk Monk - 02-03-2016
Just when I was about to give up on psychotropic Japanese exploitation films, it's Sion Sono to the rescue, restoring my faith in this beloved genre.
Where to start: TT is a hip hop Japanese street gang film in an alternate Neo-Tokyo. As y'all know, I luv musicals, and while I'm not a huge hip hop fan, I've always thought that there was a great hip hop musical to be made. They should remake the Warriors as a hip hop musical. That's almost what TT is, only more insane. Who would have thought that it would be Japan to deliver the greatest hip hop musical so far. This is what Man with the Iron Fists should have been. The bulk of the dialog is in rap. The beats are fat. At first, I thought this was just a long glorified music vid, but it grew on me as something much more by the end. It's so Sono, it hurts.
Where it really hooked me were the long single-shot scenes - swirling camera work through extremely complex environments with the actors rapping out their lines to the beat. The cinematography alone is stand out. Some of the fight sequences are outstanding single-shot acrobatic action sequences.
But here are some of the bullet points in this remarkable DOOM flick, all of which are totally gratuitous presented here alphabetically: bad haircuts, bare boobs, bare buns, baseball bat fights, bikini babes, busty villains, cannibalism, cartoonish gangs, disco tanks, dwarf villain, gattling guns, gaudy neon, giant cusinart fan of death, graffiti, katana fights, lens flares, sequined handguns, sequined samurai helmets, saucy prostitutes, sauna penis envy, thigh-squeezing neck-breaks, villainous dildos, whip-wielding dominatrix...oh I could go on and on. Something that really amused me is that the good guys hang out in a diner called Pennys - written in Dennys style font. Thought of you, Greg, and our many hours in that notorious establishment.
Here's a taste, but it hardly captures this film:
What DM said... - cranefly - 03-22-2016
This could have used some judicious trimming throughout. It got just a bit too lingerish and wanderish in places, little eddies in the screaming rapids that spans two hours.
But having said that, I'm fully aboard with DM's review. I had this in my streaming cue for quite a while, had forgotten it was a Sion Sono flick, and had somehow missed or forgotten about DM's review. So I cranked it up expecting junk.
At first I thought that's what it was, because I hate rap. I just don't get it. It took me a few minutes to sink into it. My goodness, Sono is so inventive, so full of energy, and those long scenes are so complex, full of movement, and so many individuals are rapping (something you'll never see out of Hollywood, where speaking parts are kept to a bare minimum to keep costs down). Pretty soon my feet were atwitchin' to the beat and it was like, holy shit, some Japanese guy just explained rap to me? Very comic-bookish, superheroish, and I was totally immersed.
Not a perfect film, as it gets needlessly sloppy in a few places. But still, so many great scenes, beyond count, and I give it a rare 5 -- the first in a very long while.
Even rarer, I have a strong urge to watch it all again.
RE: Tokyo Tribe - Drunk Monk - 02-22-2019
Wasn't sure where to post this. We have a few Sono reviews (mostly cf's). I'm looking forward to a collab between him and Cage.
Quote:Japanese Auteur Sion Sono Hospitalized After Heart Attack
8:30 PM PST 2/7/2019 by Gavin J. Blair
Ben Gabbe/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival
Sion Sono
The cult director's first child was born to his actress wife last week.
Film festival favorite Sion Sono, 57, is in a hospital in Tokyo after undergoing emergency surgery on Thursday following a heart attack.
The cult Japanese director reportedly called an ambulance on Thursday afternoon when he began experiencing chest pains at his home in Tokyo's Shinjuku district.
His agency confirmed that Sono had suffered a heart attack, saying: "He now requires time to recuperate." Sono's wife, Megumi Kagurazaka, who has appeared in seven of his films, gave birth to their first child last week.
Sono debuted in 1990 with Bicycle Sighs (Jitensha Toiki) and has built a cult following around the world with quirky and challenging films, such as Love Exposure (2008) and Cold Fish (2010), alongside winning awards at numerous international film festivals.
Sono's Himizu competed at the Venice International Film Festival in 2011, winning best young actor and actress prizes for Shota Sometani and Fumi Nikaido, respectively.
Last year, Sono was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The director is working on a drama for Netflix which due to run this year, his second TV series after 2017's Vampire Hotel for Amazon. He is also set to direct Nicolas Cage in a crime thriller, Prisoners of the Ghostland, his first overseas production. At the Berlin Film Festival on Wednesday, it was announced that Imogen Poots would also star in Ghostland.