Tokyo Tribe

If you wanna know what this movie is about, think of 'The Warriors' only as a manga comic or think of 'West Side Story' only as a Japanese rap opera. Think of it as an amalgam of the two, only as if the story was instead conceived during a fever dream, pumped full of crack cocaine, overdosing on metamphetamine, before then getting totally blown out of proportion.

It's like Asian Snoop Dog and Far East Satan had a child that through pondering the value of big dicks, accepts conversion to Christianity by Feminist Jiu-Jitsu-Buddha. It's a Menippean satire that based on the holy principles of hip hop invents its own reality, then cuts it into pieces with the help of samurai swords, gattling guns, and razor blade ventilators, before letting it rise again by the power of bass-laden words from the Battle Rap Bible.

I dare say: if you haven't seen it, you have never seen anything like it!

Sion Sono seems to be entering a new phase in his career that is just incredible. With 6 films set to be released in 2015 alone, and putting the insanity of Why Don't You Play In Hell and Tokyo Tribe into consideration, I think it's safe to say that Sion Sono is the new Takashi Miike. Only better since Sono actually writes his owns movies.

If you are asking "where can he go after doing Why Don't You Play In Hell?", the answer is Tokyo Tribe. The movie is an instant cult classic and one of the most ambitiously original films of his career that I doubt any other director could pull off. He dubs it as "the worlds first battle rap musical", and it definitely is. Over 90% of the dialog is rapped. Most of the shots are in long masterful takes. While it's not as gory as Why Don't You Play In Hell, the action is nearly non stop and absolutely mind blowing. The sets in this film are truly a site to behold. He said at TIFF that he employed a lot of students to make them. The all around visual style of this film is just unreal. The only film I could compare this to would be Sogo Ishii's Burst City. Both are musicals that chronicle Japanese music scenes of the time with a very loose plot connecting it all together. Like Burst City, it's not about the plot, it's about the visual and musical experience. Sion Sono took a risk that most film directors of his calibre wouldn't even dare and he pulled it off masterfully. Love Exposure will always be his supreme masterpiece, but I can safely say that I rank Tokyo Tribe among his best films, and i've nearly seem them all.

Some people who hate hip hop may hate this movie. I myself am a major hip hop nerd but I don't see that as bias, If anything It made me more concerned before watching but wow. This movie rules and is the best musical in ages and the only good hip hop musical ever produced.

Neva Eva Die

The costumes/movie set are quite breathtaking and songs are very catchy. Another eccentric movie by Sion even if it doesn't break any grounds. It's probably hard to watch again as the plot is extremely superficial and never takes itself seriously. Never knew Rap was a thing in Japan until I googled some of the actors from the movie that are actually real artists irl.

You'll either find this mash up of gang violence, martial arts action and hip-hop musical (it is told almost entirely in rap verse), based on a popular Manga series ingenious or totally bonkers, but director Sion Sono delivers a movie that goes beyond the midnight-movie oddness of the plot, and has a knack of making the dumbest of ideas work. In a futuristic Japan, territorial street gangs form opposing factions collectively known as the Tokyo Tribes. When one of the gang leaders breaks the fragile peace, it triggers a brutal street war for supremacy. Featuring a cannibalistic yakuza boss and his son who has a room full of human furniture, a (computer-generated) tank rolling down the streets of Tokyo and bombing buildings, a lot of humour, and even a homage to Bruce Lee (not Kill Bill) in Game of Death, there's a lot to like in this movie even if the novelty of it all does start to wear a little thin after a while.

Insane rap musical about warring gangs in Tokyo. This grows to be a lot of fun, but I had to get over a lot of annoyances before I could get into it. First and foremost, I had to get into the music itself. It's certainly not great hip-hop, and, at first, I found it kind of lame. As the film progressed, I don't know if the music got better or I just accepted it as it was, but I started to kind of like it. Second, the plot is a huge mess. I certainly wouldn't recommend you go it hoping for a clear plot, because you're not going to get one. It's just kind of your standard yakuza turf war stuff, with a good gang and a bad gang and a bunch of other, lesser gangs. Then there's something with a runaway princess or something that never quite gels into a coherent story. What you will find is a ton of cool bits scattered throughout, augmented by weird and wild costume and production design. The action is also very good. Sono continues to be a flawed director, but he's clearly one of the most interesting people working today.