Tokyo Tribe

Director: Sion Sono

Reviewed by: Gail Spencer

Gutsy, violent, funny and relentless - this film is strange, an acquired taste for sure but unbelievably compelling. For openers, we are introduced to its unique premise and delivery via rap: the entire film is given to us in rhyming couplet - but with the visceral qualities usual in some of Asian Extreme. 

The director, a well-loved Japanese talent brought us Love Exposure, brings together a piece that has influences East and West - Gangs of New York is here, chambara (the special effect of fierce and pulsating bloodletting after amputations), Battle Royale (in costume), and even West Side Story. The rivalry and cruelty is off set by the humour, and whilst not an easy watch, the combination of the two works well. 

As a starter for ten, we are introduced to the film in its first sequence with a very tiny (aren't they always?), attractive policewoman, after her shirt is torn open has her bare breast held at knifepoint.  One running gag is a phallus/receptacle used as a fast orgasm inducing tool by a gang boss, who rolls his eyes right into the back of his head at the point of ecstasy. Sounds nasty but is as funny as hell. Pitch this against the imagery of granny Hip Hop DJs serving music to the neon streets of Japan. 

The delight of this film is the self-awareness of the work - it knows that its extreme depiction of rival gangs in the future Tokyo should not be taken too seriously. It has noted the gang culture of the West (LA in particular) and taken things a little further…..progressive indeed to depict female beatboxers. We are talking here about a culture that brought us scatting (smearing faecal matter on ones partner during sex, not to be confused with jazz improvisation) and bukkake (the extreme covering of women in a lot of semen). The violence and sex, though intimated more than put on display is hard core, but so is life in the world on display: it never looks or feels gratuitous. 

Inspired and adapted by a manga comic, the central set piece is a dining hall, not dissimilar to the set up in The Cook, The Thief, his Wife and Her Lover, and a lot of the action takes place here, in a brothel and on the streets themselves. All the actors look about nineteen apart from what appears to be a deranged middle aged woman who dances in a high leg cut cocktail dress whilst violence and mayhem is all about her and her middle aged male counterpart, who likes a weird from of public release, dressed in gold larme suit, the kind one would expect from a 1980s Bryan Ferry. Surreal and seductive, the film sometimes feels like a David Lynch with mad and extreme characters doing their thing in the most inappropriate settings. 

This film has to be seen to be believed, but is a cult classic in the making. 

In selected theatres from May 22nd.