Crows: Episode 0
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From AsianMediaWiki
User Rating
Current user rating: 94/100 (123 votes)
Profile
- Movie: Crows: Episode 0
- Romaji: Kurozu zero
- Japanese: クロ-ズ ＺＥＲＯ
- Director: Takashi Miike
- Writer: Hiroshi Takahashi, Shogo Muto
- Cinematography: Takumi Furuya
- Release Date: October 27, 2007
- Runtime: 129 min
- Language: Japanese
- Country: Japan
Plot
Director Takashi Miike’s recreated Hiroshi Takahashi’s original comic book that sold more than 32 million copies in Japan. This film is about violence in private institutes. The film presents the story that precedes the comic book. The characters have also been newly re-created.
Suzuran High School is also known as The School of Crows. The biggest clique, Serizawa Army and its boss Tamaran Serizawa are challenged by a new student to the school, Kenji Takiya. Takiya, son of a yakuza boss, wants to be the school’s ace fighter. But at the advice of Ken Katagiri, a low-ranked start-out yakuza, Takiya starts to muster together a gang of his own. And as he grows into a true leader, he must face an ultimate battle with Serizawa’s gang. Through Serizawa and Takiya’s battle, director Takahashi shows not only his unique aesthetics for violence but also the true meaning of charisma, friendship, and leadership.
Notes
- Related titles:
- Crows Zero 2 (2009)
Cast
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| Shun Oguri | Takayuki Yamada | Kyosuke Yabe | Sousuke Takaoka | Meisa Kuroki |
| Genji Takiya | Tamao Serizawa | Ken Katagiri | Izaki | Ruka Aizawa |
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| Kenta Kiritani | Tsutomu Takahashi | Suzunosuke | Kaname Endo | Yusuke Kamiji |
| Tokio Tatsukawa | Takashi Makise | Chuta | Yuji Tokaji | Shoji Tsutsumoto |
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| Yusuke Izaki | Hisato Izaki | Dai Watanabe | Motoki Fukami | Shunsuke Daito |
| Manabu Mikami | Go Mikami | Bando Hideto | Megumi Hayashida | Hiromi Kirishima |
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| Yu Koyanagi | Yutaka Matsushige | Sansei Shiomi | Kenichi Endo | Goro Kishitani |
| Makoto Sugihara | Ushiyama | Yoshinobu Kuroiwa | Joji Yazaki | Hideo Takitani (Yakuza boss/Genji's dad) |
Additional Cast Members:
Trailer
Image Gallery
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Film Festivals
- 2007 (12th) Pusan International Film Festival - October 4th-12th - A Window on Asian Cinema
- 2008 (10th) Deauville Asian Film Festival - March 12th-16th - The Action Asia Competition
- 2008 (10th) Udine Far East Film - April 18th-26th
- 2008 (41st) Sitges Film Festival - October 2nd-10th - In Competition Fantastic Selection
- 2010 (12th) Mumbai Film Festival - October 21-28, 2010 - Celebration of Japanese Cinema
Awards
- Black Dragon Audience Award (3rd Place): 2008 (10th) Udine Far East Film - April 18th-26th
LoktarOgar Says:
Apr 03 2009 12:16 pm
Having read the manga, I can vouch for the greatness of this movie as far as atmosphere is concerned, but one needs to remember that the movie was pretty much written from scratch. Some manga characters make an appearance but the film is set one year before the manga begins. Nothing, including Tokio's health problem, appears in the manga. The manga doesn't even have any female characters, let alone one that sings during climactic battles. That said, the author of the manga was closely involved with the movie, even having a cameo appearance.
Ki Says:
Feb 01 2009 4:27 am
Whether the backdrop is a Western, Warfare, Yakuza gangs, or High School gangs the basic elements seem to be the same. Two sides gear up for a conclusive battle, with the side best able to commandeer loyalty and discipline usually winning the fight. Well, give someone with the creative level of Takashi Miike a script like this to work with, base it on a 30 million selling comic and set a working budget far larger than what he normally has to work with and you could end-up with a train wreck or a visual treat. “Crows:Episode One” is clearly a visual treat.
In “Crows:Episode One” Genji (Shun Oguri) is a new transferee at the notorious Suzuran High aka the School of Crows. Suzuran High is noted, with good reason, to be the roughest of rough high schools in Japan. With that kind of reputation, it’s obvious Genji didn’t transfer to Suzuran to receive a better education. Rather, his father Hideo promised Genji he could succeed him as the crime boss of the Ryuseikai Yakuza gang if he is able to take leadership over Suzuran High. Thus Genji begins enrollment at Suzuran High with one goal in mind: to become the school’s undisputed leader.
The reigning king of Suzuran High is Tamao Serizawa (Takayuki Yamada) and his group the Serizawa gang. Tamao notices Genji immediately, when Genji beats up members of a rival yakuza gang that came to school to settle a beef with Tamao. A new rival to Tamao indeed has landed at the School of Crows.
Unfortunately for Genji, what he has in fighting skills is offset by his lack of diplomatic skills or the ability to lead. Individually he can take out the best of them, but at Suzuran High numbers are just as important. Thus to challenge the Serizawa gang, Genji must unite rival factions to make any serious challenge to the Serizawa gang. Genji then turns to Ken, one of the low-level yakuza member that came to school on his first day at school, for advice on uniting the different factions. Although Ken is a bumbling low-level Yakuza member, he was a former student of Suzuran High and is able to provide the minimum guidance necessary for Genji to challenge the Serizawa gang. Now a showdown for the ages is set to occur at Suzuran High.
“Crows:Episode O” is another clear example of the current Renaissance period in full bloom over Takashi Miike’s long directorial career. That’s not to de-emphasize his earlier work, but rather envious praise to the continual growth he shows during his middle age period. It’s obvious from the get go that “Crows:Episode 0″ is the most commercial film of his career, having visuals that screams out big budget. In lesser hands, “commercial film” could be double-speak for “sell-out,” but in Miike’s case it just means the man has a palette that has gotten that much more expansive. The re-creation of Suzuran High was spot-on with just the right amount of anarchy, nihilism, and comic book like flavors built into the set. The climatic fight scene was even more impressive, tip-toeing between the manga world and film world in a totally novel way.
Having never read the comic, the few flaws found in the movie version can be blamed partially on the original comic and partially on the movie adaption. These flaws, while not show stoppers, did knock the movie down a notch from becoming a straight up classic. The first problem was with the soundtrack, which was a bomb, but not in a complimentary way. Earlier in the film, when the Suzuran punk kids gathered together at a seedy night club, the musical hors d’oeuvre of the day was a double bill of harmless commercial rock and Christina Aguillera like J-pop. Intuition told me that these group of punks would have pelted the band members with debris in the same manner that they pelted each other with punches in a just world. Adding more insult to injury, during that crazed fist-a-cuff finale, the movie screeched to a halt by the interspersion of a tepid romantic ballad sung by Ruka. This was the one moment where the commercial goals of the film became a clear distraction to the storytelling. The other fault I found in “Crows:Episode O” probably resulted more so from the comic, but nevertheless, it did distract from an otherwise stellar film. In particular, the sub-plot concerning Tokio’s health just didn’t seem to fit within the context of the rest of the movie. Furthermore, when that final battle scene was gearing up, a visual parallel was drawn between Genji’s quest to become the undisputed leader and Tokio’s quest to survive surgery. May have been nice in theory, but it just didn’t work in the movie.
Meanwhile, starring actors Shun Ogari and Takayuki Yamada were nearly perfect in their portrayals of the rival heroes. Shun Ogari displayed all the charisma that has already made him a much sought after star in Japan and Takayuki Yamada turned in just a head turning performance. This is the same man that played the uber geek in “Train Man: Densha Otaku.” Sweet indeed. Outside of the weak Tokio character, the supporting cast was nearly as strong, providing the colorful personalities needed to make its many individual characters stand out from each other.
“Crows:Episode 0″ turns out to be one of the better manga adopted live action movies made to date. There’s definitely Miike’s wild stamp placed in the movie, while his other stamp … the ability to defy categorization is just as evident. After it’s all said and done, it seems Miike making a big budget film is just as impressive as Miike making a cutting edge low-budget cult film. Oh if you wondering about the episodic nature of the comic and that finale…get ready for “Crows Zero 2″ in 2009. “Crows:Episode 0″ is just a whole lot of fun.