Original Title: クローズZERO | Kurōzu Zero | Crows Zero
Release: 2007
Country: Japan
Director: Takashi Miike
Running Time: 129 Min.
Cast: Shun Oguri | Kuroki Meisa
Written by Miguel Douglas
Published: 06.30.08
Even though Japanese director Takashi Miike has dabbled in the Yakuza genre many times before, he returns to the genre once again with the 2007 film Crows Zero, this time exploring the environment of inner school feuding. The film is based off the manga Crows by Hiroshi Takahashi.
Crows Zero begins with transfer student Genji Takaya (Shun Oguri) entering Suzuran High—an all boys school where male testosterone dominates over academics. But Genji is not attending the school because he wants to learn, he’s attending because he wants to beat the best. The son of a Yakuza leader, Genji was promised by his father that if he could take control of Suzuran High, then he would be next in line to run the family crime business. In order to do this though, Genji must defeat the current leader of Suzuran—the ferocious Tamao Serizawa and his gang. The optimistic Genji begins to form his own squadron of fighters to take on Serizawa, fighting all the way to the top, one class at a time.
Stemming from director Takashi Miike, Crows Zero is a film that continues a long standing tradition that Miike has always upheld—delivering gut wrenching scenes that truly are memorable to the viewer, whether intentionally or not. And while substantially less violent than a majority of previous films, Crows Zero still provides a rather hyper-stylistic portrayal of hand-to-hand fighting. Each fighting sequence is so vividly realized, it goes to show that Miike went through painstaking lengths to resemble the look of the manga as closely as possible. This look transfers over to the cinematography, enhanced specifically for the films bone crushing fighting segments. Slow motion glares, frantic duels, and vicious gang combat litter the landscape of Crows Zero, absorbing the viewer into a world where it’s never too safe to turn your back. Couple this with the addition of an awesome heavy metal soundtrack, and you have yourself a hardcore excursion in the high school feuding underworld.
As for the characters, they were all visually distinctive from one another. And I have to say it was great to see Shun Oguri play essentially a character so charismatically enveloped in fighting for supremacy, that it was a great juxtaposition from his numerous other roles, specifically his television ones. It’s good to see him step out and try different characters, and he surprisingly does well in his portrayal of Genji. But the rest of the cast in excellent as well, and each play their roles respectively to their manga counterparts. The only character I could see that somewhat hindered the film was Ruka Aizawa (played by Kuroki Meisa). Her character seemed to basically appear to promote her musical talent, and was only inserted into the film to advance a rather superficial relationship with Genji that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. With that aside, she did play her role exceptionally well and her part fortunately doesn’t call for a substantial amount of screen time.
In the end though, Crows Zero is a surprisingly entertaining film. While at times abundantly violent, it balances out with a solid plot that is engaging primarily due to its interesting cast of characters. The true star though is versatile director Takashi Miike. He once again showcases his ability to deliver a film that retains many of the elements of his previous films, and still make it accessible to the most general of audiences. With that in mind, Crows Zero is his most commercially accessible film yet, and that’s saying something considering his long list of “controversial” films.
