First Love focuses on Leo, played by Masataka Kubota, a young successful boxer who finds out he has a brain tumor and only a few weeks left to live. Not too long after his diagnosis, he runs into a young woman named Monica, played by Sakurako Konishi, who was sold into prostitution by her father and is on the run from a corrupt cop named Otomo, played by Nao Omori. When Leo saves Monica from Otomo, he gets in the way of a larger plot, involving a drug pusher, the yakuza, Chinese gangsters, and whole slew of other characters out to get one another.
The film is essentially Miike’s take on a Coen Brothers crime comedy, like The Big Lebowski or Burn After Reading. The film is set off by one brief encounter, and soon escalates into a madcap adventure where more and more people get involved to the point that both the audiences and the characters themselves are disoriented. This film has a lot of moving parts, and there are characters introduced fairly early on who will take a backseat for most of the film, and appear again when things are brought full circle.
Despite the convoluted nature of the plot, the film works since Miike is so well aware of just how ridiculous it all is, and fully embraces it. Much of what happens in this film is played for laughs, with characters totally dumbfounded by what would just unfold in front of them, whether it be over-the-top violence or an idiotic misstep. And at times, characters will comment more on the most minuscule part of a deathly serious situation, such as one instance where one character is nearly murdered and they’re more annoyed by the fact that the assailant ruined an article of their clothing, and these moments get some really great laughs.
While the film is stacked with so many characters, it masks the fact that it might be a bit too confusing by giving them all their time to shine. While not every character is really fleshed out, nearly all the players involved usually has at least one great moment, especially being one that induces some gleeful belly laughs. The only exception to the rule is Monica, who is by far the most thinly written character in the film, which becomes slightly disappointing, especially given that she’s the central female character.
There is a somewhat intriguing storyline involving her hallucinating an abusive individual from her past coming after her - which Miike somehow finds a way to still twist into something funny - but it’s never really explored deeply enough to make her a consistently interesting character. Despite jilting the main female character, the film balances this out with a character named Juri, played by Becky Rabone, the girlfriend of one of the drug lord’s associates who has her own bone to pick with the drug pushers and gang members. Juri’s storyline is not only one of the most fun parts of the film, but one of the strongest in terms of character.
First Love is a totally off-the-wall crime comedy with a convoluted storyline, but manages to have as much fun as possible with its bonkers premise. It’s filled with a bizarre cast of characters, nearly all of whom are either charming or wildly entertaining in their own right, and each getting their own moment to shine at some point throughout the film. And it’s filled with plenty of Miike’s signature crazy, over-the-top violence and fast-paced thrills. It’s a genre mashup that makes for one of the funniest, thrilling, and most enjoyable films of the year thus far.
Recommendation: Watch It
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