Best movie ever!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

There are some movies that are such a mishmash of awesomeness, it is hard to believe they exist as a movie. By this, I mean - there are so many genres that co-exist in one movie, it is hard to believe they exist period. Most movies choose to exist in one genre with maybe a subgenre; anything beyond that and we get into the realm of comedy and ridiculousness. Enter "Why Don't You Play in Hell" which is just that. The movie co-exists between documentary, college friends going out on a (local) adventure, Samurai showdown, Yakuza, a discrepancy of nearly ten years that separates two halves of the movie (past and future), as well as the artistic style that is Japanese blood and limb dismemberment. Did I mention that this film is not American, but is actually of Japanese origin? And with a title like "Why Don't You Play in Hell", I can see why. This is just the tip of the iceberg though.The film starts out with what appears to be a packin commercial for "Gagaga" toothpaste; it stars a young girl in a white outfit. This commercial actually plays a larger part in the movie and is referenced numerous times. Fast forward to a group of amateur movie making enthusiasts that are in the midst of making their own movie; they crash into a gang that is mid-scuffle and they start to record and direct. Fast forward again to two different Yakuza groups that have their own skirmishes. Fast forward again and we see the little girl from the commercial walking into a home full of blood. Turns out her mother did some handiwork with some Yakuza that tried to take her (mother) down; the girl turns out to be the daughter of a Yakuza lord. The film jumps back and forth between these groups frequently and it leads to a very confusing, but interesting mish- mash. It isn't evident how they will all play together, but it does happen in the latter part of the film - I won't spoil it.The film has a lot of blatant humor - it has a homage to Bruce Lee in the form of an actor in a film directly copying and mimicking his known style. The opening commercial, while confusing as to why it is there, is funny in its own right and then gets many references to it as a running gag in the rest of the film. The movie's claim to fame would have to be the amateur film makers that call themselves the "Fuck Bombers". The artistic feel of Japanese blood spraying from dismembered limbs is used throughout the film; it has a few moments where it is both ridiculous and fake. The pool of blood that awaits a young girl in her kitchen is nearly a foot deep - impossible with the amount of people involved. The entire movie almost feels like it is a parody of many genres at once; it also feels like a Quentin Tarantino movie, specifically "Kill Bill", but it could be that Kill Bill uses a similar premise - not to mention it also has "The Bride" in a yellow Bruce Lee jumpsuit.The film is far from being a train wreck, and due to the mashup of things, it must close all of them or it wouldn't be a very good movie. It does just that in the last half of the movie. More importantly, we get to see why all of the characters interact and are involved the way they are. Just about every character gets some kind of closure, although at least once gets an inappropriate death. The film only has one bad side - and that is when all of the action built up to a certain point is suddenly dropped due to an outside force; but I will not spoil that either.If you like B-grade movies of a foreign affair, this will most certainly be a pleasant viewing.Originally posted to Orion Age (http://www.orionphysics.com/? p=11073).

This was a movie made with great love for cinema. If you are a true lover of film you'll greatly enjoy this film. The film has many references, parodies and praise for other films you'll recognise which adds to the fun. The music is excellent, a lot of it original, some you'll recognise...If you liked Kill Bill, your sure to like this, where as Kill Bill was like a love letter to Japanese cinema and culture coming from Tarantino, this is one coming right out of Japan....The main appeal for this film is that it is lots of fun and you'll get the tone of the film very early on, which is the crazy off the wall humour which Japan specialises in. Its gloriously over the top, gory and funny and I was smiling the whole way through! Check it out!

Beneath all my suffocating inhibitions, my inability to share my true feelings, my fear of doing what it is that I really want to do - there is a character somewhat akin to 'Hirata', in Sion Sono's 'Why Don't You Play in Hell?'. Here is a ridiculous and frankly insane character - a wannabe film director (and leader of the 'F**k Bombers' cinema club) who'll go to literally any length to realize his dreams and is not remotely discouraged by his complete lack of accomplishments over the past ten years. He's nuts, and yet my soul is frankly screaming for me to live my life with the same liberated, unashamed, energetic, joie d'vivre, that Hirata maintains in the face of it all... The spirit of the F**k Bombers!Before Sion Sono was a filmmaker, he was part of a poetry collective called 'Tokyo GAGAGA', that took their poetry screaming into the streets. 'GAGAGA', Sono's explained, is the 'sound of the soul'. By that same token, I've often felt that Sion Sono's characters are the soul, personified: their actions are crazy, over-the-top, and usually comically violent - they're not realistic, normal characters - and yet I see my own soul realistically reflected in his characters, more strongly than anyone else's.Like Kurosawa's 'Dreams', 'Why Don't You Play in Hell?' is autobiographical in the most uniquely and completely outlandish way. Hirata is Sono, from his early amateur filmmaking days, when he really did go round with his gang, calling themselves the F**k Bombers, playing Bruce Lee in the park, and being called an idiot by young children. That just about everything else in this movie is heavily fictionalized is pretty obvious, but just as Sono's characters don't reflect normal people, but capture their spirits, his story, if you consider it autobiographical, captures the spirit of his experience becoming a professional filmmaker. It's a movie about the spirit of movies, the spirit of filmmaking, and as Sono says, the 'love of 35mm'.It's also about a yakuza turf war. And there's some romance as well: a meek boy falls in love with a girl after seeing her shove a piece of broken glass through another guy's cheek with her tongue, and shortly gets over his own shyness. The movie is a crazily-ridiculous breathlessly-paced action-comedy, capturing the same punk rock energy as Sono's Love Exposure, and it's his most polished-looking film yet. It's a lighter affair than most of the movies he made before - the psycho-horrors and the Fukushima-dramas - but it's no less good; it's thoroughly entertaining from start to finish, and especially, everything after the F**k Bombers finally cross paths with the yakuza is pure genius.It's a movie that had me laughing, had me tapping my feet to the music (all written and composed by Sono himself), and had me grinning cheek-to-cheek the whole way through. And, like Sono's very best movies (Hazard, Love Exposure), it might have even inspired me, to loosen my inhibitions a little bit.

Sono seems to be the only film maker left who I feel I can always depend on to make a great movie. I was a little worried in the beginning that he was just trying to make a stupid Hollywood-type comedy, but it turned out there was a good reason for this. In the extra features on the DVD, he gives a press conference with a friend of his, the editor of a Japanese film magazine that specializes in films like Sono makes. It turned out that there actually was a Film Club called "The F-ck Bombs", and it was started by Sono and his friend. Many of the scenes in the beginning when they were chased by kids in the park and called idiots, actually happened to Sono when he was first starting to make films, only Sono was thirty years old when that happened to him, and the experience was extremely traumatic for him. Sono started out as a poet, and only started making films when he was much older. This movie is about him reliving that time in his life, and also a homage to Bruce Lee films. It has nothing to do with inferior film makers like Tarantino. The only other director who constantly turns out good films like Sono is Todd Solondz, IMHO.