Tokyo Tribe

2014 "Let Sion Sono take you on a tour of Tokyo's underbelly for a night of turf wars & rap battles."
6.4| 1h56m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 30 August 2014 Released
Producted By: Nikkatsu Corporation
Country: Japan
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.tokyotribe-movie.com
Info

In an alternate Japan, territorial street gangs form opposing factions collectively known as the Tokyo Tribes. The simmering tension between them is about to boil over into all-out war.

Genre

Drama, Action, Crime

Watch Online

Tokyo Tribe (2014) is now streaming with subscription on Prime Video

Director

Sion Sono

Production Companies

Nikkatsu Corporation

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Tokyo Tribe Audience Reviews

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story
StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
Leofwine_draca TOKYO TRIBE is another quite incredible movie from Japanese cult director Sion Sono, a man whose has overtaken Takashi Miike as that country's supreme director of trashy, anything-goes cinema. I've previously experienced the delights of such films as GUILTY OF ROMANCE and LOVE EXPOSURE among others, but even they didn't prepare me for this high-energy musical that has to be seen to be believed.The story is set in an alternate universe Tokyo, one that is dominated by rival gangs. The tale sees a pair of super-villains teaming up to commit murder, only to find themselves opposed by the rest of the gangs who gather together to combat them. The result is an incredible concoction of martial arts action, sexuality, and generally cool characters doing intensely cool things. I loved every demented minute of it, and that's coming from somebody who doesn't even like rap music. It says something about Sono's efforts that I ended up loving the music here, even if it is just for this movie.
kosmasp Actually watching this I can't imagine anyone being serious ... I was surprised at how much "Rap" was in it (even though some of the actors actually weren't that good with their MC skills) - you can and should call this a musical. Obviously, if rap music isn't your thing, you should not even think about watching this.Anyone else open to a mad world, go ahead and have fun. And you can have fun. There are so many crazy and wicked ideas in this, you'll have quite a lot to talk about with friends or generally on the internet. There were a couple of moments that seemed unnecessary (misogynistic), but other than that, this is really just a fun little movie, that almost made me stand up at the end singing along - Tokyo Tribe
Tom Dooley Shion Sono ('Love Exposure') started his career as a poet before entering film making. Here we have both talents to the fore. This is an alternative or futuristic Tokyo where the areas of the City are ruled and controlled by 23 gangs or 'tribes'. If you like 'The Warriors' then you will get this angle. They are all fairly distinct; except the thing they all have in common is rap music and hip hop (or hippitty hoppetty to the older out there amongst you). *May contain mild plot spoilers*. There is a lot of nudity on display with a plot line that seems to have forgotten to take its Ritalin and has let the imagination go wild – I was reminded a few times of the wonderful Peter Greenaway. The plot is all around taking control of Tokyo, sexual exploitation, cannibalism, sado masochism, bizarre outfits and hair styles and some 'wicked beats' – as the 'homies' say on the streets. The characters are all over the top, there is tons of fighting – using everything from Martial arts wire work to blinged up AK – 47's oh yes and a Gatling gun. There is a lot of English used in the raps – mostly the profane sort but also some rather brilliant portmanteaus such as 'wan – ksta'.It is endlessly inventive in terms of the violence and the props as well as the lurid imaginations of all the over the top performances.This is enough to make you like hip hop – that is if you are not already a fan. Also I was a bit disappointed at first as I wanted this to be the usual type sci-fi violent film. However; once I had given it some time I just could not get enough. This is one I shall be raving about for some time to come. This is what cinema should do – excite, challenge, break the rules, make up some new ones and have a bloody good laugh – screamingly recommended.
Callum Niatory To be clear I have never read the manga it was based off of so some of my comments may be invalid. Tokyo Tribe is seriously just whacked up from angles. Very cool idea to begin with, however, and I do commend them for the way they separated their characters; each very colourful and unique. Colour is one of the things i love about Japanese films, they always have 'em. Also for the record, I have a grasp on how Japanese grammar works so there are times i do pick up a different perspective on their acting sometimes as Japanese comes across in English sometimes as very plain. But you know, i get what they're trying to say...anywayOKAY, acting was ... well, its hard to tell. From one angle each character would have half of their dialogue in rap. But when it comes to a film like this, one can be forgiving because it's mostly just trying to express a message rather than a film straight up about some acting. So i didn't mind that the characters were all jacked up on their own principles and egos. No one really stands out except maybe the 'sumni/sumi' or whatever the hell her name was (had glitchy hard sub). Everyone else i guess acted the way they were supposed to act (presuming in regards to the manga) so nothing really special. No Oscar nominations here LOL u know what i mean? Really was digging the cinematography. City representations of nightlife was pretty cool, semi spot on. The movie did feel like it was on a budget though the characters were always enough to keep your mind guessing. really enjoyed the shots whereby the camera follows the character and things just happen around him. It's like the world froze while they did that. there was some really strange scenes however but nothing too distasteful - it's to be expected what with all the smuttiness and perversion. But yes they did far too many revisits to old locations which was disappointing. And the occasionally really out of place character shots whereby the after a dialogue scene the camera very quickly cuts away to a shot of an not overly important character and that character does something that adds to the archetype or style of the personality being represented.The plot idea was pretty sick but the pacing was quite all over the place. Lots of overbearingly long expository dialogue in the form of rap (ill go more in detail later.) The idea of warring tribes is cool but not really explored, more like introduced and then mashed together. The bad guy in this film is really messed up which is typical of the style but very out of place in terms of rap. like his character or the people in his crew didn't really necessarily need to be rappers. But ill say it does lend to the overall blend. The plot was mostly predictable too, only not when some weird moments were occurring like the beatboxing maid bits and the fastid strokings of a golden dildo. Ending was totally lame though.Script, okay, rap too. I can't fully comment on this because I know I'll be semi- wrong because of the translation. But the rap was OK. What dragged it down was the fact that most of it was expository dialogue. Basically explaining exactly what was happening. And then so much patriarchal archetypal rap. The introduction part was great, you really got a sense of how different each tribe was, through their visual displays and their rap style and beat style. But as the characters crossed over it felt less like a collab and more like the awkward clash of another mans hand touching your buttocks. You feel uncomfortable and it's just plain wrong. There wasn't really much to say on this except the way they depicted chillhop rap was funny albeit quite inaccurate.The music was however not up to standard for a film like this. I honestly expected a well thought out selection of beats and breaks were going to astound me but I was ashamed to find out it was focused mostly and solely on the uniqueness of a group among groups of interloping characters. There were some straight out terrible industrial experimental beats during some of the bad guy scenes and man were they industrially experimentally bad.I wished there were more fight scenes that were more choreographed. Some flashy stuff but mostly one hit per guy sort of fights which can get pretty boring to watch. If it was anything like crow zero now that would be awesome. The rapping throughout a movie could have been done well had the characters been written more thoroughly and less 'this is my style and this is my take on the situation'. The flow separations are cool though it never really got a time to shine through because of the whole bad guy scenes. Too many of those. But great characters, awesome main character; a fighting cute girl who can rap and showed her boobies on screen - thats a real woman im telling ya. Great costumes and really over the top stereotypes. Lots of fun watching this in the sense of sight. In the sense of sight there was always something happening so you could probably still be entertained had the film been silent. Yeah 6/10. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who likes rap unless they were begging me to show them a film about Japanese rappers who rap in different styles, do manga type music things that is illustrated with lots of colour. If i happen to stumble in on someone watching the film I would gladly sit through it again with them to see their reactions and to make comments on how absurdly inane all the scenes were.ps. I'm not a LOL kind of guy.