One of the best parts of being a movie musical obsessive is having the chance to see some truly weird takes on the genre. There’s definitely room to love the major studio releases, but they are inherently conventional since they need to appeal to a wide audience, churning out soundtracks that you’ll be blasting on Spotify for years to come. There is plenty of room for those modern hits like The Greatest Showman (2017), but what I’m talking about exists outside of Top 40, where the artists find new ways to express themselves by combining the tools of music and moving pictures.
The past decade was a golden age for these types of film, whether they be the Kickstarter-fueled Girl Walk // All Day (2011) or the fluid poetic tapestry of Baby Driver (2017). Even the jukebox musical got a fun independent spin with the Belle & Sebastian-inspired God Help the Girl (2014). With all of that said, none of that quite takes the cake when compared to one adaptation in particular. I guarantee that while the word “crazy” gets thrown around a lot, few actually reach the potential quite like Tokyo Tribe (2014).
If I’m being honest, it’s not the catchiest soundtrack in the world nor is it always the most endearingly strange (see: The Lure (2015)). But if you’re wanting mileage out of the word “crazy,” then you may as well start and stop with Japanese director Sion Sono.
Before I continue, I will fully admit that I’ve only seen two of his movies. Still, in both cases there is some mind-bending expansion that comes with pressing play. He is a madman who pushes the limits of narration (and sanity) to such an extent that he produces a new form of art. Why Don’t You Play in Hell? (2013) features him using decades of Japanese film culture to make the wildest yakuza movie of its kind. It’s a story so vulgar and violent, with fight sequences that feature swords flying and fighters back-flipping that you just have to go for the ride. It’s a love letter to the excessive, strange (and excessively strange) history of Japanese cinema and I guarantee that if you love a wild ride, then you’ll get a kick out of this.
Unlike other purveyors, I think that he has a hold of his craft that is actually artful. If you compare him to other shock-meisters of world cinema like Gaspar Nöe, you could easily mistake him for a Spielberg, a Tarantino who is so in love with these strange and perverted corners of pop culture that he just has to exploit for his own amusement. His English-language debut Prisoners of the Ghostland (2020) is allegedly coming out this year and finds Nicolas Cage calling it “the wildest movie he’s ever done,” which is saying something.
But oh boy is Tokyo Tribe a masterpiece of his gonzo mentality, managing to be the type of epic that your more impulsive and eccentric auteurs would make. To provide some background, it’s a movie based on a manga about the 20+ gangs that live in Tokyo. They all have turf wars before joining forces to take on the elite, the rich parties that have secretly manipulated them to turn on each other. Again, Sono’s obsession with Japanese iconography finds this strange mix of classic warrior garb and fusion of American gangster culture. There are even whole plots that play like the skeeziest soap operas rich with infidelity and masochism. The film practically ends with characters arguing over who is more manly in the most ridiculous and juvenile ways imaginable.
As mentioned, the soundtrack isn’t necessarily groundbreaking or amazing. I doubt that I will play any of these songs out of context. However, what follows is a sung-through musical that exists in something akin to a freestyle.
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Imagine if you will that there’s this one narrator walking through the streets of Tokyo. He’s our entry point, notably because he raps directly to the camera. What follows feels like a camera constantly being hijacked with ADHD precision by a different tribe, telling their story that makes this whole universe make sense in some warped fashion. Like American counterparts, this is all a form of bragging, where to make yourself sound big and tough is the law of the land. Some do it with eccentric garb, others personalities that will require a double-take. This is impulsively strange and you can get lost in the massive crowd, admiring how Sono even knows how to keep the pace from ever snapping in half.
To give some insight into this world, I will say this much. The Jellicle Cats from Cats (2019) have subtler names than these tribes. Among the more blatant is Neri Motha Fuckerz. At times these players come across like suicide bombers, eager to fight without a moment’s notice. It’s a vicious world where swords fly. Rap battle is a thing that forwards story, including one in the third act that is so massive and audacious that you’ll either be in awe of the towering chutzpah, or you’ll be one of those that think this movie is very, very stupid and is just a whack joke.
The best way to look at this is like a Wu-Tang Clan album. For those who don’t know, the rap collective gained popularity throughout the 90s for mixing the genre with martial arts samples, drug and crime stories, as well as whatever Ol Dirty Bastard was selling. They were unpredictable and found so many voices clashing together in this bizarre unity. Every person was reasonably the best in their class, and together they presented a new perspective that at times felt dangerous. You never heard anything like “Enter the 36 Chambers.” It was like listening to a fictional city having a town meeting on wax.
That is what Tokyo Tribe feels like in its best moments. The story itself is impressive because the massive scope involves a form of street rap that hasn’t been that popular in a few decades. It’s the type of rap battles where two men emerge from a crowd, eager to impress each other with lyrical dexterity. In this ridiculous world, those words have the power to cut you in half, and to hear the call and response nature from the crowd is one of those surreal highlights that feel strangely ahead of their time.
It’s the type of story that gets by as much on crowd mentality as it does the power of the individual. Again, Sono’s direction makes it all seamless, bringing with it an artistic license that makes this manga adaptation (“Tokyo Tribes” by Ken Wakui) much better than it has any right to be. Everything is over the top and done so with a purpose that is wonderfully sadistic. Hope you like dark humor because this is Sono at his most balletic. It’s all a dance that feels like Cirque du Soleil if the yakuza personally funded their projects.
Tokyo Tribe is also honestly one of the few musicals of the decade that I feel is showing us something new, possibly even innovative. Maybe it’s all just style to play into Sono’s perverse world view. This all could be some mediocre, campy joke that is only funny because I’m an American audience not inundated with lowbrow Japanese humor. Even then, for as off-putting and bad as some moments may be, the confidence to pull this all together is an amazing achievement that I think is worthy of further exploring. There have been violent musicals before, but none who were as obsessed with over the top theatrics like this.
Nothing out of the ordinary necessarily happens, especially if you’re into martial arts movies, but how they’re approached is an incredible new achievement. Even the massive scope feels like something that very few directors could pull off with as much confidence. Everything needs to be in place, and the results speak for themselves. You’re constantly second-guessing yourself as a viewer, eager to make sense of what you just witnessed. Half the time it’s a visual thing, but others it’s a lyrical choice that will knock you out of your chair.
Sono has created a wholly unique world, and in the process made me believe that cinema should have a future. It is capable of telling stories that I would never have expected to hear. This is a collision of so many ideas that it becomes endearing to just think about it. At once it’s a familiar story about overthrowing the rich antagonists who are needlessly arrogant. At others it’s pushing the boundary of what a musical should look like, mixing visual styles to such an extent that America will never come close to capturing something like it. They have too many investors expecting residuals.
I suppose that I bring this up because there is something joyful about discovering musicals from around the world. I have yet to see anything from Bollywood, but I assume there’s something that will break my mind even further open. For now, I recommend those wanting an acid trip of a musical to track this down and witness a director who knew no limits. He keeps pushing himself, eventually landing on something that is simultaneously the most brilliant and stupid thing in the world. Only someone with a solid handle on being a director could make this work, and boy does he.
I’ve been meaning to watch a whole lot more Sono since I do believe he has the capability to be one of the most interesting filmmakers currently working. He falls into a class alongside Leos Carax (who is also working on a musical!) whose work is exciting because of how cryptic it sometimes is. We don’t know what goes through Sono’s head, and that’s often refreshing. That is why when he chose to tackle a musical, I am relieved that he didn’t sacrifice his vision to learn the artistic style of someone like Vincente Minnelli. He just did his thing, and the gamble paid off beautifully.
It should be obvious, but this isn’t a film for everyone. Those wanting a conventional film, this is not for you. It’s at times uneven and maybe dips too low into bad ideas. However, those wanting to explore movie musicals that are “crazy,” then you best go here before trying to drop that Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) claptrap on me. Sure it’s good and maybe even has better songs, but it’s not as crazy. Crazy is taking risks so big that they confuse the hell out of your audience and sometimes don’t even work. Sono’s made a career out of that, and here he’s made something so provocative and rich with personality that I couldn’t forget it if I tried. If you’re looking for a wild time, then I suggest you check it out.
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