Sing and fight!
A young woman meets a young man who rescued her when she was a young girl. She’s certain that this is the man for her. But he’s not interested in her. Other girls are also interested in him, but he doesn’t care about anyone. The only thing the young man does is create chaos, because he is a tough fighter who beats up everything and everyone, no matter how many they are! But he will get a nemesis who is also a fighter as strong, if not stronger than he is!
Takashi Miike is back with a new musical where he mixes a lot of fighting, drama, and singing. I would call For Love’s Sake the musical version of Crows Zero. He loves the Crows Zero series, so do I. But a musical version of Crows Zero doesn’t work optimally. Midway through the movie, Takashi Miike forgets that he’s making a musical. The fighting takes over, and towards the end, dark drama suddenly takes over. This is some strange genre-mixing we are witnessing!
It’s fun to see the protagonist beat up schoolgirls. Takashi Miike shows a bigger fight where the protagonist beats up a group of girls who are many and tough. But they are no match for the protagonist. I don’t think Takashi Miike can like women considering how much he enjoys beating up women in his movies!
The songs we hear are mostly good. There are only two songs that I didn’t like. We also get to see some cool and visual sides of Takashi Miike. Especially the sequence that becomes a kind of theater act with the insane girl is amazing! It’s so good!
The characters are hollow, especially the protagonist is so hollow that one can hear the echo when he speaks. There is one character who steals the show, and that’s the ugly girl who looks like Sadako or Kayako. The actress who plays this character is brilliant! She’s the big highlight of the movie!
The movie is on and off. It’s half an hour too long. When I thought the movie was almost finished, it was about half an hour left. In the last act, For Love’s Sake gets darker and darker. It transforms into a drama movie that becomes uncomfortable when one girl turns out to be insane. Did Takashi Miike forget to take his medicine that day? This is too dark!
I think For Love’s Sake is a movie that fans of Takashi Miike will appreciate, especially if you like the Crows Zero movies. Don’t think of For Love’s Sake as a pure musical. Takashi Miike suddenly forgets that he was making a musical after an hour. Then the testosterone increased when he shot the fight scenes, and he lost his way. Don’t expect to care about the protagonist either. He’s just empty and self-absorbed and very hollow. I appreciated the madness and all the references to the Crows Zero movies. But again, the movie becomes too dark!
For Love’s Sake is not a movie for the casual viewer. Personally, it’s movies like this that make me still love movies. But it’s a shame that Takashi Miike didn’t take his medicine, because the mixing of genres doesn’t work optimally.