Tokyo Tribe Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Tokyo Tribe Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov June 20, 2015

Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Sion Sono's "Tokyo Tribe" (2014) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film; deleted scenes; and a long featurette with raw footage from the shooting of the film. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

Lord Buppa

Tokyo Tribe is the strangest film that I’ve seen this year. It comes from Japanese auteur Sion Sono, whose films are never easy to categorize. Some are so extreme and so disturbing that I’ve often wondered how they are screened uncut at various festivals around the world (Cold Fish). Some have a very odd sense of humor, but are firmly grounded in reality and have a lot of meaningful things to say about modern Japan (The Land of Hope). And some are just plain silly, but are so different from the rest of the films that are made each year that it is virtually impossible not to like them (Love Exposure).

Tokyo Tribe is yet another ‘different’ film from Sono. Only this time the end result actually looks like a very, very long clip from a Japanese video game designed by a young Japanese programmer who wanted to impress a powerful executive at BET (Black Entertainment Television).

The film is set in the future, I think, after various wacky gangs have taken over Tokyo. The gangs are introduced in a long prologue where all sorts of random characters rap in Japanese while people around them do silly things. It rains the whole time, but the streets are packed and no one seems to care.

Once the gangs are profiled the film shifts gears -- sort of. The gangs start clashing, but the chaos that ensues makes the war impossible to follow. On top of that the warriors and their leaders seem fully aware that there is a camera rolling somewhere in the back because they literally act like they are in a Japanese hip-hop music video -- there is a lot of cursing/rapping, jumping around and posing. Even for a Sono film, the kitsch is quite unbelievable.

The meanest character is Lord Buppa (Riki Takeuchi), a pervert with a tattoo on his cheek who keeps a big plastic penis on his massive dining table and frequently masturbates. Lord Buppa is the Godfather of Tokyo and fears only the mysterious High Priest, who also happens to be a diehard hip-hop fan. Some of the most ridiculous sequences in the entire film feature Lord Buppa, his son Nkoi (Yosuke Kubozuka) and his crazy boys.

The war ends only after Sono literally runs out of crazy ideas and the warriors finally figure out that after all rapping in Japanese may not be such a good idea.

When the final credits appear most viewers should be relieved. Sono is a great stylist and has an incredible imagination, but Tokyo Tribe is one of his most unconvincing films. It is unbearably kitschy and very poorly edited, and it is painfully obvious that the majority of the actors that were hired to do it quite simply do not know how to act.

Tokyo Tribe is loosely based on Santa Inoue‘s popular manga. Earlier this year, Producer Patrick S. Cunningham (Martha Marcy May Marlene) and filmmaker Darryl Wharton-Rigby acquired the TV rights to the manga and are currently working on a pilot for a new show with Inoue.

Tokyo Tribe Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Sion Sono's Tokyo Tribe arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment.

Shot with the Red Epic camera, the film has the appropriate sharp and clean appearance. Detail is outstanding. Depth is very good as well, though there are select parts with minor density fluctuations. These fluctuations can be traced back to the positioning of the camera and the manner in which light is captured by it (compare screencaptures #1 and 18 to see the difference). Colors are stable, but the color tonalities have digital identities (see screencapture #13). Image stability is outstanding. Finally, the encoding is good, but there are a couple of darker sequences where light compression artifacts try to sneak in (you can see an example in the bottom right corner of screencapture #15). (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free Blu-ray player in order to access its content).

Tokyo Tribe Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Japanese LPCM 2.0. Optional white English subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.

There is a rather big gap in quality between the 5.1 track and the 2.0. track. While clarity is identical on both, separation and to a certain extent dynamic intensity are far more effective on the 5.1 track. You can experiment with both, but I think that the 5.1 track very clearly serves the film better. The dialog/rapping is very clear, stable, and easy to follow. There are no audio dropouts or digital distortions to report in this review.

Tokyo Tribe Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - original trailer for Tokyo Tribe. In Japanese, with imposed English subtitles. (2 min).

• Deleted Scenes - four deleted scenes. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (4 min).

• Making of Featurette - a long featurette with raw footage from the shooting of Tokyo Tribe. Included in it are short comments from various cast and crew members. In Japanese, with imposed English subtitles. (64 min).

• Booklet - limited edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Aaron Hills along with behind the scenes photography.

Tokyo Tribe Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Sion Sono's latest film, Tokyo Tribe, is a very odd hip-hop musical that could frustrate even longtime fans of the Japanese auteur and his work. It is so chaotic and so over the top (and not in a good way) that it actually looks like a very long video clip taken from a video game designed by a young Japanese programmer who wanted to impress a powerful executive at BET. Eureka Entertainment's technical presentation of the film is good, but if you would like to see it my advise to you is to find a way to rent the Blu-ray before committing to a purchase. RENT IT.