Tokyo Tribe

[GeneChing]

The latest from Sion Sono, who also did Why Don't You Play in Hell?

[GeneChing]

Follow the link for the clip.

Watch exclusive fight scene from the futuristic martial arts hip-hop musical, Tokyo Tribe
Yes, 'martial arts hip-hop musical,' yes.
BY DARREN FRANICH • @DARRENFRANICH


Posted October 7 2015 — 11:34 AM EDT

Japanese director Sion Sono’s particular strain of ultraviolent cartoon madness made a big splash stateside with the release of Why Don’t You Play In Hell?, the director’s simultaneous ode to Yakuza cinema and commercial jingles. Now, XLrator Media is bringing another one of Sono’s madcap delights to our country. Tokyo Tribe (which hits theaters and VOD on Oct. 23) is set in a futuristic Japan, where violent street gangs battle for supremacy using killer moves and killer verse. Yes, this is both a martial arts movie and a hip-hop musical. Confused?

Check out this exclusive clip from Tokyo Tribe, which promises a unique time at the movie theater.

Something about Asian never sounds right in rap to me. This is more so with Chinese than Japanese...maybe it's the tones...

[GeneChing]

Just when I was about to give up on psychotropic Japanese exploitation films, it's Sion Sono to the rescue, restoring my faith in this beloved genre.

Where to start: TT is a hip hop Japanese street gang film in an alternate Neo-Tokyo. Now I luv musicals, and while I'm not a huge hip hop fan, I've always thought that there was a great hip hop musical to be made. They should remake the Warriors as a hip hop musical. That's almost what TT is, only more insane. Who would have thought that it would be Japan to deliver the greatest hip hop musical so far. This is what Man with the Iron Fists should have been. The bulk of the dialog is in rap. The beats are fat. At first, I thought this was just a long glorified music vid, but it grew on me as something much more by the end. It's so Sono, it hurts.

Where it really hooked me were the long single-shot scenes - swirling camera work through extremely complex environments with the actors rapping out their lines to the beat. The cinematography alone is stand out. Some of the fight sequences are outstanding single-shot acrobatic action sequences.

But here are some of the bullet points in this remarkable flick, all of which are totally gratuitous presented here alphabetically: bad haircuts, bare boobs, bare buns, baseball bat fights, bikini babes, Bruce Lee yellow jumpsuit & nunchuks, busty villains, cannibalism, cartoonish gangs, disco tanks, dwarf villain, gattling guns, gaudy neon, giant cusinart fan of death, graffiti, katana fights, lens flares, sequined handguns, sequined samurai helmets, saucy prostitutes, sauna ***** envy, thigh-squeezing neck-breaks, villainous *****s, whip-wielding dominatrix...oh I could go on and on. Something that really amused me is that the good guys hang out in a diner called Pennys - written in Dennys style font. I spent a lot of time hanging out in Dennys when I was in high school, so that really resonated with me.