Tokyo Tribe (Tokyo Toraibu).

Sono Sion’s battle rap musical is a violently cool sexy and insane movie, although I’m sure many will find it tacky and offensive. But any devotees of the cult director work, which has included Love Exposure (2008) Guilty of Romance (2011) and of course Cold Fish (2011), will have a grand idea of what to expect. Written and directed by the Japanese filmmaker Tokyo Tribe (2014) is a live action adaptation of the legendary seinen manga series Tokyo Tribe 2 by Santa Inoue.

Lord Buppa shows off his weapon. 

Mrs Lord Buppa gives a helping hand. 

Mira gets cross.

Set in Tokyo in the near future. The opening segment sets out how the city is controlled by 23 rival gangs known as tribes. Each is different from the next but the most powerful Tribe is led by Lord Buppa a morbidly, bisexual crime lord with a lecherous sadistic personality and a depraved son who collection of ‘live’ furniture beats anything Ikea can provide. Mera and his Wu-Ronz gang back up Buppa. But when Mera’s hatred for the Musashino-Saru kingpin Kai boils over its time for the Tribes to pick sides. If I were to tell you that before the brilliantly choreographed final battle take’s place we are treated to some complete mayhem involving a High Priest who wants to sacrifice and his virgin daughter Erika who you can imagine is not keen on the idea, a wonderful mobile phone in the shape of a gun, leather clad female warriors, Day-Glo captions and dialogue like ‘it ain’t the size of a mans penis that makes him great but the size of his heart’ something I’m sure would make a great discussion down your local pub. 

 

Will the Leather Clad warrior chief join with the other tribes....

.... to fight a common enemy?

Said to be the world’s first battle rap musical most of the dialogue is ‘spoken’ in rap backed up by a pulsating rap soundtrack and some Clockwork Orange type Beethoven interludes. As far as political correctness is concerned this movie is way off the scale but for this blogger its exciting, full of fun and a great addition to Sion’s body of work. Fans I’m sure will love it.