For the rest of us, the movie serves as lots of good fun. It's the kind of movie that, if you are fourteen and watching it, it's like a near wet-dream of awesomeness. But with Crows: Episode Zero, he found a way to tell a Yakuza story just a little different, by making it about the teenage kids (some of them, anyway) of the Yakuza who enroll in an 'extreme' high school where it's basically not about learning anything but fighting and ascending the ranks to become the head of the school's bad-ass fightin' kids. Name a kind of movie, Miike's probably done it, from family movie to samurai epic to just totally f***ed up way-past X-rated stuff, not to mention all of the Yakuza crime movies that by this time should be coming out of his nose from going over so often. which are, by a mild estimation, almost all of them. After seeing too many fists slamming into too many faces for reasons only testosterone-charged delinquents find compelling, IвЂ™m calling time-out on the whole genre.Takashi Miike is an extraordinary filmmaker, even if he works sometimes in circumstances that other directors might find ordinary, such as all of the genres that Miike tackles.

As well liked as they are by fans, the subplots involving them at times contribute more distracting static than narrative depth, while their back stories remain sketchy to non-fans, especially those who missed seeing MiikeвЂ™s films.Д«ut if you view all three in quick succession you may, like me, feel punked out. In contrast to MiikeвЂ™s crazy brio, with wild punks charging each other like blue-painted warriors in вЂњBraveheart,вЂќ Toyoda stages his fight scenes with marginally more realism, as well as a wearisome repetitiveness.ДЄlso, like so many commercial films based on long-running manga, вЂњCrows ExplodeвЂќ crams in as many characters from the original as possible, such as the excitable Suzuran alumnus Ken Katagiri (Kyosuke Yabe) and the silent hooded giant Lindaman (Motoki Fukami). Much else has to transpire first, however, including a looming war with a rival school and its top fighter - the grotesquely scarred Hiroki Shibata (Takanori Iwata). The lone wolf is Kazeo Kaburagi (Masahiro Higashide), a tall, rangy third-year transfer student, who quickly establishes himself as a fearless fighter, though he is uninterested in the power struggles swirling around him.Д«ut this wolf canвЂ™t remain in his lair forever and it soon becomes obvious that Kaburagi and Kagami are heading for a showdown. Golden-haired first-year student, Ryohei Kagami (Taichi Saotome) - with a gang boss dad, quick fists and bad attitude - is also a contender. Now that SuzuranвЂ™s previous primus inter pares, Genji Takiya (Shun Oguri) and Tamao Serizawa (Takayuki Yamada), have graduated, the top positions are open.Д¬ompeting for them are the glowering Toru Gora (Yuya Yagira), the best fighter in the school, and the spiky-haired Tetsuji Takagi (Kenzo), ranked number two. The story begins one month after the action of вЂњCrows Zero IIвЂќ ends. At the same time, the flamboyant artiness of ToyodaвЂ™s recent work, including the 2012 misfire вЂњIвЂ™m Flash!,вЂќ has been replaced by grayer shades and grittier imagery.

This will come as no surprise to fans of вЂњBlue SpringвЂќ and other Toyoda films, with their real-world authenticity beneath the surreal stylistics. In contrast to Miike, who highlighted the absurdity of his charactersвЂ™ macho posturing, Toyoda takes the manga-esque material relatively seriously and films the principalsвЂ™ emotional eruptions relatively realistically. And once again the story revolves around the eternal battle to be Numero Uno, be it in the school, the neighborhood or the known punk world. Once again the setting is the all-boys Suzuran High, where the вЂњCrowsвЂќ - the self-chosen moniker for the student body - hang out and plot the destruction of their rivals. вЂњCrows ExplodeвЂќ has much in common with the two previous films. Five years on comes the third installment in the series, вЂњCrows Explode,вЂќ with a nearly entirely different cast and a new director, Toshiaki Toyoda, whose 2001 вЂњAoi Haru (Blue Spring)вЂќ helped birth the current spate of what might be called вЂњschool of punkвЂќ films.

Crows zero movie review