First Love (2019) Miike’s Fountain of Gonzo Youth (Review)

First Love is film number 103. Back in 1991, however, Takashi Miike directed a film called “Toppuu! Minipato tai – Aikyacchi Jankushon“, a comedy about a daring policewoman dressed in a leotard who defeats criminals using gymnastics. An odd subject for a debut but such is the Japanese studio system. Now, 30 years later, he has directed his 103rd feature (working on his 104th as I type this). How does he do it? How does he continue to find new stories to tell and remain so passionate? His prolific output is probably more famous than any of his work to the extent that it has almost become a meme. There is little left for him to make. Western? Sukiyaki Western Django. Musical? He has two. Sci-fi? Terraformars. Superhero? Zebraman I & II. LGBT prison drama? Big Bang Love, A Juvenile. Anime adaptation? Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Game Adaptation? Ace Attorney. He even made a Ninja Kids movie. There is no one else like him. 

Whether he has recaptured the form that made him world-famous is impossible to say as he is deeply inconsistent, his only consistency comes from the fact that he will make at least two productions every year. Even so, the last few years have seen him produce some of the most fun titles of his career with Blade of the Immortal and his latest movie, First Love.

First Love sees him head back to the kind of films he made around his 2001 halcyon by returning to a heightened version of crime cinema with his style of Yakuza movie. A young lieutenant wants to leave his family, manipulating a situation so it’ll benefit him thanks to the help of a corrupt policeman, only he has zero luck – meaning everything that could go wrong does go wrong. The title is First Love because of the chance meeting between two unlucky souls and how they slowly fall for one another. With its large cast of players and affected parties, the nucleus of this anarchy is a lover’s on the run movie with events coming to a head in a battle to the death in an empty supermarket.

Plot matters little to this Miike Persona. First Love is little more than a collection of wild characters reacting to an increasingly awful day, don’t expect a coherent story replete with beats, character development and arcs. Miike shoots for something much looser, with events spiralling out of control after the carnage caused by Shota Sometani and his violent attempt to defect from his chosen Yakuza Clan. His carefully laid out plan is undone by Masataka Kubota (Leo), who is walking the streets of Tokyo after being diagnosed with a brain tumour. On this walk, he sees and saves Sakurako Konishi (Monica), who runs away from the man she is with, shouting for help. Little does Leo know, Monica is a drug-addled prostitute suffering from one of her visions (where her father (who sold her to the Yakuza to pay off his gambling debts) runs at her wearing tighty whities and nothing else). From which the lucky meeting, the two go on the run together.

A casting highlight is a near-unrecognisable turn from Shota Sometani as Kase, who happens to have the most deadpan relationship with murder in any of Miike’s films. No small claim to fame. There’s also a murderous triad called One-Armed Wan, who wields a pump-action shotgun – with one arm – and Julie, a woman who becomes the undying spirit of vengeance after surviving Kase’s multiple attempts to kill her. These few manic individuals are but the tip of a beautifully chaotic iceberg.

For this long-suffering fan, this is comfortably the best version of Takashi Miike – the version where it is as plain as day that he is having the time of his life putting these characters through the wringer. Kicking the anarchy off with a boxer helping a young woman in the middle of Shinjuku, it forever escalates, finishing with a battle to the death in a department store. A climactic scene where one of the combatants believes themselves impervious to pain because of the amount of cocaine they’ve ingested – even after losing an arm. A climax where a car smashes its way out of the building in a frenetically colourful anime sequence. Manic, anarchic, gonzo, this is Miike doing what he does best. Does it matter that it takes a flow chart to follow who each character is in Masaru Nakamura’s script or that the plot fails to resolve all of its character’s grievances? That’s not the level First Love operates on. First Love is pure, gonzo fun. Few in cinema can operate in this glorious escapist register, especially after 103 films. Takashi Miike is in a league of his own.

It’s also very yellow.

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