Crows Zero

Crows Zero is a manga adaptation about factions of students fighting for control of a Japanese high school. Not exactly a new idea, as every other anime and manga is about that very subject. But that's not what made Crows so uninteresting to me, I've previously enjoyed many movies and shows with similar plots. My issues with the movie were that I never felt any connection to the characters, and couldn't care less about what happened to them. Add that to the unremarkable fight scenes, and you've got a recipe for "meh". I did appreciate the sporadic humor, but that quickly (and unfortunately) faded away as the movie progressed. 

Die-hard fans of the manga may want to check this out, but I can't recommend that anyone else go out of their way to see it. If you want to see high school students beating each other to a pulp, there are much better (and more exciting) options.

This is the kind of movie where even though there are some noticeable shortcomings, they don't feel like they matter as much as they would in most other movies. Crows Zero kind of feels like a cross between a yakuza movie and a high school movie, and there's a decent amount of action in there for good measure. It takes place at a high school where classes don't seem to exist, and teachers I think are only visible in the first 10-15 minutes of the film. The school is just a battleground, really, with various factions and ambitious gang leaders (largely teenagers) all battling to "control" it.

It's a little strange how it begins sort of comedic and then decides it wants to be serious (albeit in a very heightened way) in the second half. There are probably a few too many characters to keep track of, but at the same time, considering the size of the cast and the pacing, the way they're all balanced is decent. It probably helps that most characters are straightforward, and like a lot of yakuza movies, they're all after essentially the same thing.

It's got a few action scenes throughout, and a pretty big one at the end that's a highlight. The wet, greyish mud a whole heap of people fight in reminded me of the opening action scene in The Raid 2 (2014). Like most times one film reminds me of another - and neither is the kind that EVERYONE has seen - it left me to wonder whether it's intentional, or just by brain methodically finding connections that aren't really there.

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... which are, by a mild estimation, almost all of them. 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. 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. It's the kind of movie that, if you are fourteen and watching it, it's like a near wet-dream of awesomeness. For the rest of us, the movie serves as lots of good fun.

And as this is Miike, even the more conventional things in the movie like the whole 'I'm-doing-this-to-out-impress-my-dad' to the 'my-girl's-been-kidnapped' thing, get twisted just a wee bit. And, thankfully, a great dose of humor is sprinkled throughout with really random moments of hilarity (my favorite was when the teen is just talking to his friends on the roof, and casually takes a gigantic ball of some kind and rolls it away at a set of other kids all lined up like bowling pins who get knocked down in silly CGI style), and little lines and things with the characters (another highlight involves a guy trying to impress two girls in a bar, with some disastrous results). But when it's not being funny, Miike is also an excellent director of young, brawny actors who have a lot of energy and talent to burn. And he casts well enough for its target audience; the movie isn't quite violent enough (i.e. Ichi the Killer level) to make it unwatchable for teen eyes, so all of the guys like Genji and Serizawa are cast for ultimate bad-assitude.

Indeed there are some scenes and moments that come close to being vintage Miike for this kind of tough and gritty action movie. There's a fight scene midway through, for example, that is done with no frills and with total excitement as a guy is fighting against a large group of people, and as it starts to rain and he looks down and out he gets back up and, staggeringly, knocks out almost all of them left. It's visceral things like that that work, but it's also how Miike, taking of course from a comic-book (if it weren't a comic-book one would swear a brilliant and ornery teen had written it), takes material that has originality and pumps it up to the level of an crazy sort of epic. Why this school exists and the parents don't mind sending them away to get the crap kicked out of them in a caste system is beyond me, but why carp? We believe it because Miike does, and gets us into the power struggle and the ascension of Genji, even if it means he might go crazy or if another teen, Tokio, possibly may die from a brain aneurysm.

Then again, the movie also has some problems to it as well. The whole element of the girls being kidnapped could have been cut-out, or at least given with a little more development with the female characters before they're plucked away as a kind of plot convenience (if not contrivance) just so there's something else on the plate of 's***-we-need-to-take-care-of' in the story. And the climax of the film, imbued with a real epic sensibility with Genji and Serizawa fighting in a big battle with nearly a hundred students on each side to fight, stumbles a bit as its moments of raw power and energy are awkwardly cut with images of the one guy getting operated on in the hospital - it lacks tension or focus except that surgery is going on, who cares, lets get back to the wicked action - and as well a ballad sung by a woman (we see her singing on stage too) and the fighting done in slow motion. It's almost as if Miike goes too far in his excesses in this whole sequence, and ultimately half of it is really great and the other half is just... lame.

But for any fan of the director's, or anyone looking for a kooky take on rebellious youth in Japan who are only a couple of steps removed from a Battle Royale scenario, it's a good ticket to take. There's tight acting and (mostly) hard-rocking Japanese punk tunes, and the action is often creative and engaging.

Being an adaptation of a Japanese comic book, Crows Zero offers some of the most entertaining fight scenes I've seen in awhile and the soundtrack is awesome. However, just because this film begs not to be taken seriously, doesn't mean I can ignore the shortcomings. There is a Yakuza angle that is never really explored or tied in coherently. The number of loose, underdeveloped subplots is astonishing. Last but not least, the English voice-overs are atrocious; I'd much rather just have subtitles. Everythign else sums up a fun time at the movies. You'll be dropped dead center in one of the toughest schools in the country, Suzuran, which is over run with gangs and violence.

The film is reason enough for Western fans of the Japanese medium, such as anime, manga, and video games to rejoice and I am pretty sure fans of the comic won't have reason to complain either. For its male target audience, it is sure to be a hit. Also, if you watch this film and enjoy it there is also a sequel out in the works which I will cover in the coming weeks

Directing a movie based on a manga isn't something new for Japanese auteur Takashi Miike, who also adapted the ultra-violent Ichi the Killer for the big screen. However, with Crows: Episode 0, gone are the extreme violence, though it still retains some flavour normally found in a typical action flick. Known for movies like Audition and Big Bang Love, Juvenile A, both which were released here, this is probably one of his more accessible films to date, even though it treads on familiar territory with elements of the yakuza.

Crows: Episode 0 is set in an all boys Japanese high school, where instead of having educational classes and courses, what gets put on screen (I haven't read the manga obviously) happens to be an ecosystem of triad society split into different turfs according to grade levels, classes and reputation. Unification of all levels in the school is a challenge, and new boy Genji Takaya (Shun Oguri) throws down the gauntlet on the first day to take down reigning school gangster Tamao Serizawa (Takayuki Yamada), which he finds impossible given that the latter's picked up by the police.

But of course there are unwritten rules to follow in order to engage the top, and he enlists the help of a two-bit average Yakuza hoodlum Ken Katagiri (Kyosuke Yabe) to help plot his path of success. For the most parts, the story is simple to follow, as we shadow Genji in his quest to conquer the high school class by class, through sheer brute force, gaining of respect, or simply just friendship established. As his reputation grows, so does his threat towards Serizawa, which sets up the inevitable climatic showdown where the rival gangs gotta settle who's gonna rule the school. As the saying goes, one mountain cannot hide 2 tigers.

You can't help it but Korea's Volcano High comes to mind for comparison. However, this is without the effects laden stylistic fight sequences where the exponents possess superhuman powers and abilities. Here, it's the good old fisticuffs without a lot of frills, though styled to make the characters seem to have super-strength, no thanks to the sound effects of course. The art direction is beautifully peppered with plenty of graffiti art, and your eyes would just automatically wander off to read just about every word that's spray painted out there. Oozing plenty of testosterone and machismo, there are still enough tender moments to make you cringe, bearing in mind that after all, these are pretty looking boys with mean and tough looking exteriors, but sometimes still softies at heart.

It's fight club in schools where black leather is the new uniform. If you're a fan of no holds barred street fighting with camaraderie elements thrown in, sprinkled with a dash of humour (from sight gags to the toilet variety), then Crows: Episode 0 would be right up your alley.