Written by Tom Moore
With over 100 director credits to his name and having tackled any and every film genre, legendary director Takashi Miike returns with an action-packed and off-the-wall feature that perfectly captures his love for telling bizarrely violent stories: First Love (Hatsukoi)
It follows a young boxer, Leo (Masataka Kubuto), after he oddly loses a fight and develops a tumor in his brain. Feeling that he now has nothing to lose, Leo steps in to help a call girl, Monica (Sakurako Konishi), on the run from a crooked cop and a yakuza member (Shota Shiomi). However, he unknowingly falls into a drug smuggling scheme that suddenly makes him the number one target of the yakuza and the Chinese triads. So, as Leo and Monica make their way through Toyko, they develop a personal connection that they realize is missing from their lives and heavily rely on one another to survive the night.
If you’re going into a Miike movie, you can expect the film to be filled with crazy violence, bizarre characters, and incredibly sexual moments, and that’s exactly what First Love delivers. Oddly though, these attributes feel a little tamer than usual and it’s a little refreshing actually. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of blood and gore throughout the film–especially in the final fight sequence–but it never feels exploitative and is so over-the-top that it’s actually pretty funny. With crazy decapitations where the bodies still walk around, insane car chases, and hard-hitting fight sequences, Miike easily finds a way into any action fan’s heart. Just thinking about the scenes where Kase takes the drugs he’s smuggling and feels completely invincible because of it makes me laugh and I love how ridiculous the final, elongated fight sequence is, as seeing a yakuza fight a one-armed assassin is just plain awesome. Not to mention, there’s a short animated sequence that comes towards the film’s end that looked great and made me interested to see more animated projects from Miike.
Cool fight sequences and perfectly over-the-top blood and gore aren’t the only things that Miike and writer Masa Nakamura bring with First Love, though, as there are some really fun characters too. Leo really grows on viewers because his feelings about his bad luck are fair. Having nothing else in his life except for boxing, it’s easy to see that the news of his fatal tumor and having to stop boxing actually hurts him, but he’s never necessarily bitter towards other people about it. He’s actually pretty sweet towards Monica and shows some care for the issues that she’s having with her drug addiction and rough past with her father. It’s something that makes his relationship with Monica much more genuine and it’s both a showing of great writing on Nakamura’s part as well as great direction from Miike and a great performance from Kubuto.
The film’s other characters are also a lot of fun and bring out the its comedic side. Shiomi has a lot of great moments as Kase as he simply tries to get out of the oncoming war between the Yakuza and the Chinese Triads. Whether he’s upset that he constantly has to kill people along the way, getting an over-the-top sexual high when he rubs drugs into his wounds or not being hurt by anything in the final fight sequence, Kase will definitely make viewers laugh. Even much smaller characters get some pretty funny sequences, like Leo’s doctor leaving him a bunch of voicemails telling him he’s sorry and the one-armed assassin just mowing people down with a shotgun.
Admittedly, there are definitely too many characters, which makes them hard to keep track of, and I feel like Miike has a little too much going on before the title even pops up. However, the performances are so much fun and things become much easier when characters bite the dust, that it ends up being more of a short-term issue that viewers will quickly forget. Not to mention, all of the actors perform some well-directed fight sequences throughout the film that are incredibly fun to watch and contain some great sound-effects work that make each punch and gunshot really hit hard.
First Love is definitely another strong showing for the legendary director and for those wanting an introduction to his style and storytelling, First Love is great place to start. Since it’s unlikely that Miike will be stopping anytime soon and hopefully he can get on that animated feature, it’s only a matter of time until we see his name grace the screen again.
