Crows Zero

Film Review by Keir Roper-Caldbeck | 26 Mar 2012
Film title: Crows Zero
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Shun Oguri, Kyosuke Yabe
Release date: 9 Apr
Certificate: TBC

Suzuran Senior High School for Boys is notorious as 'the toughest in the nation', an educational establishment where the droog-like pupils indulge in perpetual ultra-violence and the unrestrained use of hair-gel. New boy Genji Takiya, the son of a local yakuza boss and all-round troubled soul, has had himself transferred so that he can achieve what no-one else has – conquer the school and become its uncontested leader. But first he will have to tackle Tamao Serizawa, the school's 'own third year monster'.

Hardest-working-man in Japanese cinema Takashi Miike directs this manga adaptation with his usual gusto – the twelve minute pre-credit sequence has more going on than the whole of The King's Speech. But if watching these petulant, preening teenagers beat the crap out of each other initially has a certain appeal, as the film drifts through its more than two hour running time, we soon realise that we don't care about any of them. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]