A dangerous night!
A young boxer is diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the doctor doesn’t give him long to live. Out on the street, a young woman comes running, and she has a man behind her. The young and depressed boxer knocks down the man, and what he doesn’t know is that this will be a dangerous night as there are several groups out on the streets searching for the young woman. They are looking for a bag of drugs, which they are sure the young woman has in her possession.
First Love disappointed me greatly. I’m a fan of Takashi Miike, though he makes a lot of shit. I didn’t think First Love would be as weak as it was. This is a flat movie with boring characters, and the whole movie lacks energy. And that’s strange when there is so much happening.
Takashi Miike has sometimes trouble creating interesting characters. There are many characters in the movie, but most of them have zero substance and very little personality. That leaves us with many loud characters who are crying and screaming, and it’s not fun to watch or listen to!
There’s too little action in the movie. And when there is time for action, it’s so tame. The action choreography is bad. Where’s the energy and madness? I thought this would be a wild movie with a lot of energy and a little magic from a master who can be creative when he wants to. But no, Takashi Miike kills the pace early on. And when he first kills the pace, you can expect to embark on a tedious journey where he never gets the engine running again. That’s nothing new with this uneven director.
We only get to see a few brief scenes where I could recognize the good old Takashi Miike. But that doesn’t last long!
I didn’t care about the two characters we are supposed to root for. The actors have zero chemistry, and Sakurako Konishi who plays Monica is lousy! The only thing she does is playing innocent and scared, and she isn’t convincing at all!
First Love is a tame movie that doesn’t have what I want from a Takashi Miike movie. It’s a tame movie that lacks creativity. The action scenes are boring, and there are too many empty characters who don’t generate energy on the screen. I want madness with electrifying characters! Where is the madness? Where are the fun characters I want to follow? They are not here!