PDA

View Full Version : First Love from Takashi Miike



GeneChing
04-25-2019, 08:59 AM
‘First Love’: Details Revealed For Takashi Miike’s Cannes-Bound Action-Thriller With RPC & HanWay (https://deadline.com/2019/04/takashi-miike-first-love-details-revealed-cannes-action-thriller-with-rpc-hanway-1202601162/)
By Andreas Wiseman
Co-International Editor
@AndreasWiseman

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/first-love-poster-e1556120010711.jpg?w=1000&h=562&crop=1
HanWay Films

Details have been released today about Takashi Miike’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight-bound action-thriller First Love.

Set over one night in Tokyo, the film will follow Leo, a young boxer down on his luck as he meets his ‘first love’ Monica, a call girl and an addict but still an innocent. Little does Leo know, Monica is unwittingly caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme, and the two are pursued through the night by a corrupt cop, a yakuza, his nemesis, and a female assassin sent by the Chinese Triads. According to the production, all their fates intertwine in “spectacular Miike style, at his most and fun and anarchic.”

The film reunites Oscar-winning producer Jeremy Thomas’ (The Last Emperor) Recorded Picture Company with cult director Miike for the fourth time after their collaborations on Blade of the Immortal, Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai and 13 Assassins. HanWay Films will handle worldwide sales (excluding Asia) and will commence sales at Cannes.

The film is a Japanese/UK collaboration and is produced by Muneyuki Kii, Jeremy Thomas and Misako Saka. It also reunites Miike with many of his regular collaborators including writer Miyabi Nakamura (The Bird People In China), composer Koji Endo (13 Assassins) and cinematographer Nobuyasu Kita (Blade Of The Immortal).

THREADS
Cannes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53853-Cannes)
First Love (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71286-First-Love-from-Takashi-Miike)

must

find

trailer

GeneChing
05-16-2019, 09:15 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5psh0olrbM

GeneChing
07-24-2019, 09:50 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnriSpm4ZBE

GeneChing
09-04-2019, 12:05 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f-dyjACbB0

GeneChing
10-23-2019, 08:42 AM
I've stopped posting reviews since KungFuMagazine.com started doing a lot more reviews but I just could not resist this title.


REVIEW: ‘First Love,’ a kung fu love story (https://thesunflower.com/46171/lifestyle/first-love-a-kung-fu-love-story/)
Ryan Crews, Movie Critic|October 23, 2019

https://thesunflower.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MV5BODg4MDBmY2MtNzg1Yy00ZTc0LWI0ZjgtZmI0ZDRiYTAxMm M3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU1NzU3MzE@._V1_SX675_CR0067599 9_AL_-608x900.jpg
Courtesy
Movie poster for 'First Love'

What do you get when you mix a smiling, decapitated skull, corrupt cops, a boxer, a prostitute, a whole lot of MDMA, the yakuza and a kung fu film together? A love story by Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike.

“First Love” or “Hatsukoi” is a shockingly violent love story about a boxer who is diagnosed with a death sentence of a brain tumor and the woman that he accidentally saves from a life of forced prostitution. It may not sound like it, but at its heart, “First Love” is a sadistically funny tale about dumb criminals getting innocent people wrapped up in their crossfire, while also setting a violent path in motion that will change every character’s life forever.

It’s a hodge-podge of ’90s Tarantino-like plots (“True Romance” and “Pulp Fiction”), but where the film really shines is its expert cinematography, its wicked sense of humor and its quiet moments which tackle its love story. As the film nears the end, however, it rarely gives its characters, or the audience, room to breathe as the over-the-top violence takes over in long, drawn-out scenes of bloodshed. When the last drops of blood fall, the film also meanders in unnecessary vignettes that show our lead characters changing their lives around, which were storylines that were far better left implied.

Miike has made over a hundred films in his career. While I have never seen another of his films or heard of him before Tallgrass 2019, “First Love” made me want to go back and explore this auteur’s filmography the next chance I get.

Hold the phone...what kind of Miike reviewer hasn't seen another Miike film? That's just silly. :rolleyes: