First look at Takashi Miike’s “First Love”

The man is close to turn 60 years old, so he must slow down his well known crazy frenzied productivity rush that made him being responsible for over 100 feature films. Still, every year Takashi Miike is ready to bring us a new movie. This time, he is back to one of his favorite genres with the yakuza action thriller First Love (2019), about a young boxer and a call girl get caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme over the course of one night in Tokyo.

Leo is a young boxer, successful but unable to show emotion. He has a fight scheduled and is sure that he will win. Instead, his opponent knocks him out. This triggers a chain of unpleasant events involving drugs, corrupt cops, the Yakuza, a female assassin – and Monica, an escort that he must rescue. It’s one hell of a night for Leo.

First Love (2019) has been written by Masa Nakamura, who also wrote the screenplays of other Takashi Miike movies like Andromedia (1998), The Bird People in China (1998), Dead or Alive 2 (2000) or the surreal but essential Sukiyaki Western Django (2007). Masataka Kubota, Nao Omori, Shota Sometani, Sakurako Konishi, Becky, Takahiro Miura, Mami Fujioka, Cheng-Kuo Yen, Chun-hao Tuan, Maimi Yajima, Masayuki Deai, Bengal, Kenichi Takito, Jun Murakami, Sansei Shiomi and Seiyo Uchino star in the film.

Described as being Miike’s “most fun and anarchic”, and with a style very close to one of his occidental pals Quentin Tarantino, First Love (2019) had its premiere this year at the Cannes Film Festival in May. This month it was also part of the line-up in Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland. It is scheduled to hit cinemas in September. You can watch here its teaser trailer: