Kishiwada shônen gurentai: Chikemuri junjô-hen

In the last 3 months I have bought and watched 21 Miike films. I am a FAN!! I just watched this one tonight, and so far it, and FULL METAL YAKUZA are my least favorites. In general I am not a fan of movies about the trials and tribulations of 18/19 year olds, and to my mind the ones in this film were more boring than most. Only a couple of them (2 of the guys) had any real 'character' to speak of. While the girls were, for the most part, all hair and blank stares. Their lives started out 'no where' and ended 'no where' with very little in between. For a Miike film, even the cinematography was rather boring. On the other and the use of 'Western' music to try and give some 'life' to all the non-action was very well done. (Miike uses Western music to great effect in many of his films.) Which brings me to the one scene that totally transcended the rest of the film and made watching the whole thing worth the time spent. Having broken up with the least interesting of the 3 young men, one of the girls is forlornly riding a street car to the sound of flamenco guitar. The scene cuts to the bar/café where one of the other young men works as a cook. An older woman we had seen incidentally early in the film comes out from behind a curtain dressed in black sequins and rhinestones and starts to dance to the guitar music (which has continued to play), much to the amazement of the others in the bar. Her moves are OK but not great. The scene continues to cut back and froth from the girl on the street car becoming more and more despondent, to the woman dancing. Each time it cuts to the dancer her costume has become more and more authentic as does her dancing. Finally she has become totally transformed into an astonishing dancer of great power, while the young girl has become totally lost. The finale of this sequence is classic Miike!!! The whole thing was mesmerizing! But then we are dropped right back into the land of the boring. For another 30 or 40 minutes. Towards the end, Miike does throw in a moment of great fun, a kind of gloss on the American wild boys in a car theme. But that then trails off into the sappiest ending one could possibly imagine. If you want to see Miike do 'young people' and do it brilliantly then watch LEY LINES, CITY OF LOST SOULS, and BLUES HARP. These are some of his best films. Only if you are a die-hard Miike fanatic should you bother with this one.

Despite the title and the mean-looking cover art, Young Thugs: Innocent Blood is one of Miike's gentlest and sweetest films. That's not to say that it is entirely free of nastiness. The protagonists spend a lot of their free time getting into violent brawls. But the story is one of friendship and romance. The film follows four friends, three guys and a girl, as they exit high school. As time goes on, and as new romantic relationships arise, the friends grow apart. It's kind of like Take Care of My Cat, except for every once in a while someone gets beaten with an aluminum baseball bat. It's actually quite touching, and frequently very funny. The climactic event in the film is extremely goofy in a way that only Miike could accomplish – it's not quite on the level as the end of Dead or Alive 1, but it's something you're guaranteed not to see outside of this man's filmography.

This is a pretty entertaining Miike film which suffers mainly from an anti-climatic and slow storyline. It is still quite entertaining and contains several distinct Miike touches, but the compelling nature of the characters and their locale is somewhat hurt by the strange pacing and repetitive activity. The storyline centers around Riike and his relationship with his high-school sweetheart, Ryoko, soon after the two leave high-school. Riike is now a petty street-mobster who makes a living protecting street vendors and low-level gamblers while Ryoko works in a hair salon. The film investigates how the violent side of Riike's personality is necessary for him to maintain close relationships with his friends and girlfriend.

The movie takes place in a neighborhood of Osaka, Miike's hometown, and is shot mostly with local actors. It's interesting that most of the guys in this film are notably un-handsome, while the girls are typically attractive. The film actually comedically riffs on this a couple of times.

And the comedy here is pretty good. The movie is a weird mix of slapstick and goofy comedy, non-lethal violence and occasional tragedy -- typically eccentric Miike. No single element is too affecting and perhaps that is why the movie falls a little short. I do admire Miike's versatility and ability to play each angle against each other -- at times it is even reminiscent of Takeshi Kitano's direction. This is not a total surprise considering Kitano has appeared in at least a couple of Miike films.

The acting here is competent, but not exactly powerhouse stuff, but then again I wouldn't expect that from the material. It's an entertaining look at the lives of several mischievous teens after they've left high school and the story contains some auto-biographical elements of both the director and writer (Osaka natives). It's entertaining but the pacing holds it back occasionally. Still Miike proves himself pretty versatile and the charming jokes and random Dada-esquire vignettes won me over (the search for 67 degrees, for instance). I'll certainly be interested in checking out the other films in the same series.

I have just received both Young Thugs Innocent Blood and Young Thugs Nostalgia, i have just watched Innocent Blood and have yet to see Nostalgia so that film may blow this one out of the water! hahaha! But yeah, a brilliant film, it's full of things of interest and is of the more 'nice' films that Miike does, like DOA2. It's a really warm film with some really nice subtle cinematography that breathes life into the images that Miike constructs. It has a really nice golden colour through out which isn't too over the top that it gets in the way but clear enough as to explain the film on a purely colour basis, this is a film of memory and childhood, it really doesn't deserve the 18 rating it has, it's insane that it has that to be honest! The one thing i'd say is a little off putting, which is the music, it's VERY cheesy and genetic and pulls the film down in respects, but on the other hand it very much fits in with the innocence of the whole movie.

It's a movie that, although very 'easy' and innocent, it has a lot of depth and aspects of interest such as the construction of the film and how it is told, the editing, the characters, and how it relates to other films by the director. I'd really really really recommend this title to anyone who doesn't just take Miike as a place to be horrified, he's never been about exploitation and hey, this is pretty far away from that sort of thing.

Having seen over 20 Miike films, I expected "Kishiwada shonen gurentai: Chikemuri junjo-hen" (or, as the American release is called, "Young Thugs: Innocent Blood") to be a good movie, but I didn't expect it to be this great! From beginning to end this film kept me involved, laughing at the many hilarious scenes and empathizing at the many dramatic scenes. Unlike many Miike films, this movie carries with it a sense of innocence. Sure, it has some outrageous violence, but it is all in fun, like kids playing. There is no nudity or sexual misconduct (i.e. "Visitor Q" or "Ichi the Killer"), just a pure heartfelt story of young adults growing up (or refusing to grow up). Now that this movie is easily available (thanks to the great folks at ArtsMagicDVD), I would have expected more votes and reviews on here by now. I definitely recommend this film for Miike fans and haters alike. Just a great movie all around.