Director Sion Sono
Starring Ryôhei Suzuki, Young Dais & Nana Seino
Rated MA
Score 6/6

In an alternate Japan, territorial street gangs form opposing factions collectively known as the Tokyo Tribes. Merra, leader of the Wu-Ronz tribe of Bukuro crosses the line to conquer all of Tokyo. The war begins.

Alright, I forgot I had brought a copy of Tokyo Tribe on DVD and only remembered that I had it after I had watched Prisoners of the Ghostland and was left with a curiosity about Sion Sono’s work. And for those of you who are wondering with the exception of buying new releases my taste in movies can come across as being eclectic. One other point I would like to make before getting to the review is that even though the MCU might seem that when it comes to the genre of ‘comic book movies’ the MCU seems like that it is all that there is when it comes to the genre there are movies like Tokyo Tribe out there.

For those of you who might be interested Tokyo Tribe was adapted from a seinen manga series Tokyo Tribes written and illustrated by Santa Inoue. I went into this completely unfamiliar with anybody who was cast in this and of course only having watched one other movie directed by Sion Sono. I’m not entirely sure when I last watched a movie that openly embraced an ‘animated’ vibe quite like Tokyo Tribe. I’d like to think that it was either one of the Gantz movies or perhaps one of the live-action Asterix and Obelix movies. I also loved how much I was reminded of The Warriors. I certainly didn’t expect the gangs or ‘tribes’ to be introduced in the way that they were.  Tokyo Tribe is one of those movies that really needs to be seen on a big screen, sitting here writing my review I can’t shake the feeling that I should have dusted off my mini projector to watch this because my Television really didn’t seem to do the craziness of the movie justice (there is more than a few ‘what the heck?’ moments throughout the movie). The soundtrack was the other reason why I knew I had to watch this after watching the trailer, Tokyo Tribe’s music is a critical component to the entire experience of the movie, Tokyo Tribe’s soundtrack is probably one of the best that I have heard in the past five years. There is a scene in the trailer where two people are battling while battle rapping. The concept seemed very amusing to me at the time. I loved how Sono used the camera combined with Shōta Sometani’s performance as MC Show who acted as the narrator, along with the fourth wall break made the experience of watching the movie feel like you where walking with MC Show as the events of the movie unfolded. The character of Bupa seemed to be cliched though I loved the direction of his character arc. I also loved the performances of Young Dais and Nana Seino and hope to see more of their movies.