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FIRST LOVE (2019)
Director: Takashi Miike Cast: Masataka Kubota, Sakurako Konishi, Shôta Sometani, Nao Ohmori, Seyô Uchino, Jun Murakami, MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:48 Release Date: 9/27/19 (limited); 10/4/19 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 3, 2019 Masa Nakamura's screenplay for First Love is that of a gangster movie, made up of about half a dozen archetypical stories. A lot happens in director Takashi Miike's movie, and all of it is mostly united by a gang war between rival factions involving some stolen drugs. The idea, perhaps, is to give us so much movie that we're distracted from the fact that there isn't much to the actual movie we've been given. The central storyline—at least in the fact that the plot begins and ends with the character—involves a boxer named Leo (Masataka Kubota), who takes a weak punch in a match but falls anyway. A doctor informs him that he has a brain tumor, and whether or not they're able to remove it, Leo's boxing career is finished. Feeling quite down, he wanders around the city and just happens upon Monica (Sakurako Konishi), who's being chased by a man. He punches the man, who turns out to be dirty cop Otomo (Nao Ohmori). That's just the story from the perspective of the pugilist, who spends the rest of the movie running and protecting Monica, who has been coerced into sex work to pay off her father's debt to the mob, from a slew of criminals. We understand a lot more: Otomo has teamed up with gangster Kase (Shôta Sometani) in a scheme to steal some meth from Kase's boss, and Gondo (Seiyô Uchino), said boss, was just released from prison and is looking to settle some scores with a Chinese gang that is battling for territory. Again, there's a lot here (including Gondo's more personal rivalry with a Chinese gangster, whose arm he cut off, and a mob moll's quest for revenge when the drug robbery goes wrong). Those details, though, are most important to the plot itself. Miike clearly knows this is overkill and proceeds in kind, playing the material almost as screwball comedy. Kase's bumbling attempts to play multiple sides (his employers, the cops, and even the Chinese mob) are violent and wickedly funny, and inevitably, the schemes and betrayals lead to a multi-party standoff in a hardware store, where everyone seems to want to kill everyone else for some reason or another. Individual parts of First Love are dynamic and clever. With all of its plot lines and one-dimensional characters, the whole of the movie never quite gels. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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