Click Above To Buy NOW!

With the amount of work that Takashi Miike has, it’s easy to forget that his last great film, Gozu, was made over five years and over fifteen movies ago. That’s an awful lot of shit, and people have started forgetting just what made Miike an international cult sensation. With Crows: Episode Zero, Miike returns to a tiny genre that he does so well, the angsty youth sub-genre that he explored in his excellent and under-appreciated films Young Thugs: Nostalgia and Young Thugs: Innocent Blood. It’s odd, but Miike, despite being 48 years old, has one of the most beautiful understandings of youth and how it growing up affects the adolescent. The fact that this understanding is usually covered and splattered in blood is even more amazing. With Crows: Episode Zero, Miike has crafted a teen misfit film that rivals the greats within the genre, including flicks like The Warriors, The Outsiders, and Rumble Fish.

The film is about the struggle at a local high school called Suzuran, a typical Japanese high school that serves as a yakuza training ground, is covered in graffiti, and populated by some of the coolest, toughest, and meanest characters ever to take gym class. Into this environment steps a lone boy, looking to make a name for himself and prove to his father that he is capable of taking over his yakuza business. This student, Genji Takaya, must build his army of hooligans from the ground up by recruiting the other members of the school, through fighting, trying to get people laid, and tactical maneuvers. With the help of his growing army and the Japanese version of Rob Schneider, he hopes to conquer Suzuran and unite all of the students, a feat that has never before been accomplished.

The look of this film is amazing and it’s easily the best looking Miike film ever. Miike’s film drips with style as hordes of pubescent punks smash each other’s faces in, dust themselves off, and go at it again. Miike infuses his film with a punk rock aesthetic that is distinctly Japanese. Miike even manages to slip a couple of live performances from Japanese punk band The Street Beats into his film. The film is about 2 hours and fifteen minutes long, but it flies by at a lightning pace, infused with the energy of its teenage subjects. Miike manages to humanize these largely flat characters, making every simple toss of a punch into a grand moment of drama, and in between all of the fighting there are moments which are universally recognizable as part of the maturing process. The film may be shrouded in Japanese culture, but it deals with typical problems that occur in every youth’s life, such as not being able to score a chick, trying to prove yourself to your father, rescuing your girl from some rape artists… stuff like that.

The acting in the film is great, over the top, Japanese-style acting. Everyone screams their lines for no other reason than that Japanese sounds really cool when you scream. The cast is composed of dozens of fresh-faced young actors, and Miike manages to get quality performances out of everyone in the film. The best of these performances comes from Shun Oguri (Sukiyaki Western Django, Reincarnation) as Genji Takaya. Oguri crackles with energy and charisma as the ambitious son of a yakuza boss. In addition, he brings an edge of human-ness to what is almost a supernatural character.

Any movie that is focused on power struggles at an all boys high school better be able to bring the violence, and Crows: Episode Zero just might be the most frenetic, fast-paced, violent youth movie ever made. The fights in the film are intense, huge in scale and covered in blood. Every punch and kick is a thunderous blow capable of sending people flying through the air. I’d like to say there’s more to this movie… but really it’s all about the fighting and the style, much like another cult classic, The Warriors.

Crows: Episode Zero is the type of movie that you want to watch again as soon as it’s over. It is like the Japanese Version of The Warriors, but in a high school. The great news is that this isn’t the end of the Crows universe as pre-production has already begun on a sequel. It’s about time Miike finally made something worth seeing, and it comes almost too late as many people had started to forget why Miike is the master of Japanese cinema. Crows: Episode Zero firmly establishes Miike’s legacy as one of the best directors from overseas.

Final Synopsis: Crows: Episode Zero is an awesome, punk rock, brutal, nostalgic flick that is sure to become an instant classic once it’s made available in the states. Get your hands on this flick as soon as possible. It’s awesome. I’m gonna go watch it again.

Points Lost: -1 for one poorly timed pop song, -1 for a cliffhanger ending

Bonus Points: +1 for a killer performance from The Street Beats… too bad all their CD’s are import CD’s and cost an arm and a leg.

Lesson Learned: Don’t go to Suzuran High School.

Burning Question: How can the fight sequences in this be so bad ass and the one’s in Like a Dragon so pathetic? Has Miike been tested for split personality disorder?

Crows: Episode Zero
9/10

Tags: 2007, cult classic, fighting, foreign, foreign movie, gangs, high school, japanese, latest movie review, punk movie, punk rock, recent, takashi miike