One of the most prolific filmmakers working today, Takashi Miike has directed more than 100 films, videos and television productions since making his debut a mere 28 years ago. That Miike’s work manages to stay properly bizarre (and often incredibly controversial) despite his near-continuous output says almost everything one needs to know about him as a filmmaker – mainly, that he has more creative energy in his pinky toe than most Hollywood directors have in their entire bodies (In a Miike film, someone would definitely chop off that pinky toe and consume it in an effort to absorb some of his ability).
First Love, Miike’s latest effort, follows a young boxer and a call girl over one wild night in Tokyo after a drug-smuggling and stealing scheme they accidentally get involved in goes horribly, hilariously wrong. Combining a sprawling cast of delightful underworld weirdos with the dark humor and brutal violence that have become Miike trademarks, First Love is pure anarchic fun. It may lack the depth of some previous Miike standouts like Audition, but it is no less enjoyable for it.
The Wild Ones
Leo (Masataka Kubota) is a promising young boxer, but his dreams of glory in the ring abruptly die when he is diagnosed with a practically inoperable brain tumor. Shuffling through the neon-drenched streets of nighttime Tokyo, Leo is entirely absorbed by the news that his future is essentially done for – that is until he sees a young girl frantically fleeing down the street from an older man, and puts his considerable skills to use to lay the man out on the pavement.
The girl is Yuri, alias Monica (Sakurako Konishi). After Yuri’s abusive father got into debt with the local yakuza, he sold her to the gang. Addicted to drugs and forced to work as a call girl to pay off her father’s debt, Yuri was being used as a bargaining chip in a bizarre drug deal gone awry when she fled her captor and found Leo. The captor? A corrupt cop, Otomo (Nao Ōmori), working with an ambitious yet entirely out of his depth member of the yakuza, Kase (Shōta Sometani), to steal the yakuza’s latest drug shipment for their own personal profit.
Soon, it seems like every violent psychopath in Tokyo is on the tail of Leo and Yuri, including an assassin for the Chinese gang that wants to steal the yakuza’s turf and the vengeful girlfriend of a drug dealer who ends up dead as a result of Kase and Otomo’s scheme. After a number of blood-splattered twists and turns, it all culminates in a violent battle involving guns, swords, fists and other, more surprising, weaponry. Combining crazy action with a healthy dose of hilarity, it’s Miike mayhem at its finest.
Death By Everything
The colorful characters that populate First Love’s version of Tokyo are the film’s greatest asset, and watching them all trip over their own feet in their attempts to come out on top at the end of the night is furiously enjoyable. It’s often hard to keep up with the breakneck pace of Masa Nakamura’s script, and easy to lose track of who is on who’s side, but you’ll have so much fun watching them all stab each other in the back (and elsewhere) that you likely won’t care.
The chief scene-stealer is Sometani as the hapless Kase, a wannabe gangster who treats murder as a mundane task on his to-do list that he would prefer to avoid but knows is necessary in order to save his own skin. Kase continuously failing to get out of tricky situations without adding to his hefty body count (often by accident!) is far funnier than it has any right to be, yet Sometani sells each scene with his delightfully deranged energy.
Also amazing? Pop star Becky as the aforementioned vengeful girlfriend, Julie, a crowbar-wielding avenging angel who will stop at nothing to destroy Kase after she realizes he is responsible for her boyfriend’s death. Watching her go haywire and surprise everyone with her capacity for violence is brilliantly bananas. And as the film’s involuntary and unlikely hero, Kubota manages to make Leo stand out as the moral center of the movie without getting overshadowed by the amoral shenanigans around him – no easy feat when you’re surrounded by so many savage scenery chewers.
In addition to finding new and amusing ways to off various characters, Miike sprinkles First Love with the kind of wacky one-off scenes that very few other filmmakers could pull off without looking like they were trying way too hard, including an abrupt transition into literal cartoon and a moment in which one of the film’s scariest figures devolves into a dancing fool. Combined with the film’s overall sense of “anything goes,” these scenes cement First Love as cinematic anarchy of the highest order, the epitome of chaotic good.
First Love: Conclusion
Stylish, savage and supremely funny, First Love is the shock of adrenaline the action genre needs and deserves, and evidence that Miike has not yet lost his unique touch.
What do you think? Are you familiar with Takashi Miike’s work? Does First Love sound like a fitting addition to his already extensive oeuvre? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Watch First Love
Does content like this matter to you?
Become a Member and support film journalism. Unlock access to all of Film Inquiry`s great articles. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about cinema - get access to our private members Network, give back to independent filmmakers, and more.