A young boxer and a call girl get caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme over the course of one night in Tokyo.
I’ll be the first to confess: I’m unfamiliar with Takashi Miike’s filmography other than “Thirteen Assassins,” “Sukiyaki Western Django,” and the infamous “Audition.” Y’all, this man has made over 100 movies in his career. I don’t think I’ve seen 100 movies in one year! This guy’s an industry workforce notorious (I’m told) for gruesome violence, Yakuza gangsters, and is one of the most well known Japanese directors in the alt-cinema circle. Basically all I ever hear is this guy’s a legend and his movies are bananas. I’ve only actually seen “Thirteen Assassins” so I don’t have much to go off of.
“First Love” follows Leo (Masataka Kubota), a boxer, who discovers an inoperable brain tumor. In an act of fate, he rescues a call girl, “Monica” (Sakurako Konishi), from a corrupt cop, thus setting off a complex chain of events where Yakuza and Triads go to war. The scale of the film feels sweeping, jumping from character to character often reminding us of plot details as new details unfold. Yes, it’s stuffed to the gills with plot but it never trades that time away from sword fights, car chases, gory violence, or anime-esque emotional monologues.
The film plays long, but it pays off literally everything it sets up. Balancing over five different protagonists means bouncing all over Tokyo, but the film never loses its sights. Most crime movies you learn to expect everyone to die and that dread hovered over me the entire time I watched the movie. For better or worse the moral of crime is “eventually you get caught.” Takashi Miike’s film centers itself on Leo and Monica as they heal each other in the midst of a full-on gang war.
Miike does not pull punches. Bullets explode shoulders, swords slash open blood wounds, and heads get stomped fully in. This crime comedy of errors makes you feel every gut punch and sword stab with visceral sound effects often taking the lead. With even a relatively modest budget the film offscreens larger (ie. more expensive) set pieces to sound alone and it works! In one section they even gloriously animate a car jumping out of the second story of a parking garage to land behind the cop blockade. Even when the action can’t be seen it’s real, it’s heavy, and you feel every minute of it.
While I admit I felt the movie drag after its gunbattle/swordfight conclusion, I appreciate getting the narrative payoff set up in the beginning. I’m not kidding when I say every single plotline resolves by the very very end. Some may be tempted to call it a night after the big setpiece finale, but if you stick around you’ll be rewarded.
The thing that makes this whole movie stick in my head is how gonzo it dares to be. At once a crime film, a boxer film, and a comedy of errors it never fails to lean into the comedic absurdism of its scenarios. I especially point to actor Shota Sometani who plays the inelegant gangster trying to double-cross everyone. Despite getting shot, his invincible-on-drugs plays well when other characters react to it. In the film, the final set pieces involve a major “Boss Battle” that you’ve been careening towards for over an hour and a half. It’s well deserved when you watch it happen and they don’t skimp out on schadenfreude.
I suspect Miike fans will be pleased by the film. Non-Miike fans (that is to say, the rest of us) will enjoy it if you enjoy over-the-top action rides. Incorporating the tropes of other genres it evolves slowly into something more complex than a crime film. Instead, it shows us what true narrative pacing might be if every single plotline set up is paid off. I recommend to people who love big action movies.
P.S. Shoutout to the composer. A few shining moments of Jazz (almost Cowboy bebop-esque) play over the more delinquent chase scenes and it’s as gleeful as can be.
“First Love” premiered recently at Fantastic Fest and will hit theaters September 27th
