Aug
13
2007
Big Bang Love Juvenile A (46-okunen no koi)
Posted by luna6 8 Comments
Movie : Big Bang Love Juvenile A / 46-okunen no koi
Release Date : August 26, 2006
Country : Japan
Director : Takashi Miike
Starring : Ryuhei Matsuda, Masanobu Ando
Runtime : 85 min
Editor Rating : 8.0
Users Rating: 8.18 
(22 votes)
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Plot Synopsis : Jun Ariyoshi and Shiro Kazuki arrive in prison on the same day but under unrelated circumstances. Jun worked in a gay bar as a bartender. One of his customers took Jun back to his apartment and raped him. Jun ended up killing the man and then mutilating his body for hours afterwards. Shiro Kazuki came from a nightmarish childhood filled with physical and sexual abuse. He grew up to be a sexual predator and repeatedly went to jail. The most recent time for angrily beating a man to death in an alleyway.
These two inmates, though showing no more expressions of love than Shiro physically lashing out at other inmates who threaten Jun, share an emotional bond that is unspoken.
Shiro is then found dead with Jun hovering over his body and his hands wrapped around Shiro’s throat. Jun immediately confesses to killing Shiro but investigators believe otherwise.
Movie Review : Takeshi Miike’s adaptation of Maski Ato’s homo-erotic manga “Elegy for Boy” leaves most of Miike’s extremist tendencies where they belong – in the past – to create an utterly riveting original piece of cinema. The movie’s set is staged in a theater like backdrop with mostly black lighting signifying walls and borders. The camera work is as rich as anything you have seen in a Miike film, while the content is just a fascinating puzzle that comes together like an M.C. Escher painting.
The movie begins with a bizarre prehistoric scene of an old man confiding to a boy to become a man by going down to the beach and meeting a man. That man is then shown ..tattooed and dancing like he is possessed. The movie then cuts to the main setting of the film, a prison, where Jun is shown hovering over the dead Shiro, still strangling his already lifeless body. Jun says repeatedly “I Killed Him” and thus the mystery of what happened begins.
Takeshi Miike then makes remarkable use of non-linear flashbacks to weave an intricate tale of two lost souls that resonates on many different layers. The film is purposefully oblique with many jarring scenes of random images that may frustrate impatient viewers. Examples of some of the more mystifying images would be : Rocket ships, Pyramids, a recurring butterfly, a three-fold rainbow, and tattoo’s that appear on Shiro’s body some of the times. Certain moments are also shown more than once with each recurrence revealing new insight into a scene that may have not been given as much importance otherwise. If you have the type of disposition were you need things presented in ABC order you’re going to be extremely frustrated with “Big Bang Love.”
For me I thought the film was a wild visceral experience that impressed from start to finish. This was all the more surprising because I haven’t had the same type of enthusiasm for Miike’s work in the past. Visually ”Big Bang Love” looked amazing, colors having an over saturated look, while the theater like backdrop was striking. The cast was generally strong, though I found Ryuhei Matsuda to be the weak link in an otherwise strong cast. Ryuhei Matsuda played an effeminate “asexual” character who drew the attention of most of his cellmates with his feminine looks. His performance largely seemed to be a rehash of his character from “Gohatto” and he carried the same brooding mannerisms that we have seen in many of his other films like Collage of Life and Nana. On the other hand, his main counterpart in the film Masanobu Ando impressed with a fiery performance . For people who enjoyed “Battle Royale,” Matsanobu Ando did play the most ruthless of the kids in that movie…the kid that came back to Battle Royale for fun. Also, for fans of Takashi Miike’s “Audition,” they’ll enjoy seeing Ryo Ishibashi make another compelling appearance, this time around as the unhinged prison warden.
What “Big Bang Love” tried to leave for the viewer is a difficult thing to quantify because, like an Etcher painting. people can can interpret those open-ended scenes in various different ways. With that said I viewed “Big Bang Love” as a meditative piece on repressed homosexual tendencies and its origins. From the opening scene with the young boy being told to become a man by going to the beach and meeting the tattooed man, to Jun standing next to Shiro during a strip search and “envisioning” those same tattoos on Shiro, repressed homosexual urges was constant throughout the film. Although Jun and Shiro possessed a deep bond, Shiro ultimately denied any possible sexual relationships with Jun due to his affections for him. To dig further into why Shiro rebuffed any possible sexual relations with Jun a scene in the latter part of the film had Shiro saying “I won’t because you want to go heaven. “
Cast:
Ryuhei Matsuda – Jun Ariyoshi
Masanobu Ando – Shiro KazukiShunsuke Kubozuka – Sumio Yukimura
Kiyohiko Shibukawa – Makoto Tsuchiya
Jo Kanamori
Kenichi Endo
Renji Ishibashi
Ryo Ishibashi – Warden Tsuchiya
Shiro Kazuki
Sohee Park – Prisoner ‘A’
Jai West – Deranged Prisoner
If you like this movie you may enjoy : No Regret, I’m A Cyborg But That’s OK
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2006 Movie Reviews, Japanese Movies, Movie Reviews, Movies |
Comments
8 Comments so far
u think? i rather not put an interpretation on it, it seems to spoil it, the dance scene is too beautiful to add a concept on it..as its valid in its own right. adding a conept or interpretation seems to b cheating of it. like..it seems like so colourful like a rainbow to just say its green or blue.
but yeah, i get wat ur saying. i think i enjoyed it and didnt. i think it rode a fine line, that it was realli captivating and i was absorbed into the movie-but i realised i was absorbed in the movie, instead of just fully being absorbed and not notice. maybe its the cutting or something, but i kept jumping in and out of the movie, getting dragged into it n pulled out. but nonethe less, it was still a beautful movie, but not absorbing enuff i guess to make it great for me~
Hello Apple..
hmm I think if you have to think about that then you probably didn’t, but parts of it you did? Which is perfectly acceptable as the film walks down a very odd path. Time, religion, homosexuality, outer space – are all twisted together like those spiraling staircases that the detectives walked upon.
Also just a thought but you mentioned that the beginning was dramatic with colors & exposure and then it turned much more subtle/muted….perhaps that was a reflection of Miike’s impression on how society has progressed?
hi luna,
yeah, i found the movie to b beautiful. but i was a bit confused if i liked it or not. i liked it because it was subtle, i like it coz its…contemplative. but then i think i dont like it because of this, that because its a subtle film…it can almost become mute, like…flat. no doubt the imagery was so beautiful, and i realli like the dance in the beginning, it was realli good (too much cutting scenes in it i thought tho) which confused me more. becoz that dance seen was dramatic, like..realli colourful and exposed, n u have that as an intro, n i’m like wow. then its followed by a subtle/muted film. its still better than alot of films, but it makes me wonder, do i like it or not?
Rei : Actually “Big Bang Love” doesn’t have any nudity (that I can remember) or sex scenes. Everything is just implied through words, character expressions and the way a particular scene is composed visually. The movie has gorgeous cinematography to boot. So if that’s the only reason why you’re hesitant to watch it…it’s a non-issue. Cheers…
Liking Ichi The Killer is a matter of taste.
Viewers who’s into extreme gore and violence would love it. Ichi’s story is very shallow, but it’s eye candy.
I’m still thinking if I should watch Big Bang Love, I’m not into male homosexual inclined films. I didn’t dare watch Korea’s No Regrets, but I did watch Wong KarWai’s Happy Together (just because Tony Leung is uber cool and so is WongKarWai).
Haha “Ichi The Killer”. I’m still trying to suppress this film from my memory. It was one of the worst experience ever. When my friends asked me what I thought of it, I was like “Why the hell did you show me this dud!? Do you want us to stop being friends? Seriously, WHY!!????” :-)
elvyse….I’m in the same boat..Audition would be one of the few Miike films I watched with interest..then I made the bad mistake to watch “Ichi The Killer” because so many people mentioned to me “Dooddd! You gotta see Ichi The Killer!”
After going 30 minutes into the film…I thought “no i don’t.”
But yeah Big Bang Love is a whole another beast, that was amazing. Cheers to you in France.
Hmm… I’ve never been a big fan of Miike’s works. I did enjoy Audition, which was in my opinion one of his most accessible movies, but it’s far from my favorite movie ever (if you catch my drift). Still your review intrigues me: I do think he can be a great director (in my eyes at least) if he leaves his extreme tendencies in the closet. So if the movie ever gets a release down there (and I’m sure it will), I might just go and watch it.