CJFouraki Why Don't You Play in Hell? is an absolutely insane and over the top action comedy film. It's quite unique, and quite beautiful. It's essentially a love letter to cinema.The first 3/4 of this film is the setup for everything. There's a lot of good, cringey humor, some small segments of over the top violence and super stylish film making.Characters and their backgrounds are set up, their motives and dreams, it's all there. The way they're introduced is often humorous and stylistically weird, (for instance a gangster and his obsession for a young girl set up in a kitchen ankle deep in blood) and it's an absolute joy to watch everyone mixing together and interacting.The story is crazy and inventive, light-hearted and straight out brutal. For an R rated film, there really isn't a lot of violence or adult themes for most of this film. That is until you reach the last 20 minutes of this film which delivers everything you could ever want from a film like this. It erupts into a violent blood whirlwind, full of over the top kills, dramatic deaths, raw emotion and absolute insanity. It has an absolutely perfect ending for the film it is.The camera work is neat, the sound is well done, the direction is great, the story is insane and there's a lot of heart in this. And I think that's why I love it so much.This is a film I feel the director has done to throw in as many elements as possible, to direct all the things he never had the chance to direct, or may never have the chance to direct. It's a mix of gangster, kung-fu, samurai, romance, comedy, and it relishes all of these genres. And you can't help but have such a good time and feel a range of emotions when watching this.I'm glad I found this sitting off to the side at the store for a cheap price. It was totally worth it. I had a great time with this film and it flies by. If you love movies, all types of movies, I think you'll find a place for this film inside of you. It's one of a kind. It's like a super hyper violent version of Cinema Paradiso, fueled by cocaine and pumped with heart, emotion and steroids.Overall, this movie is great. It has awesome action, lovable/annoying characters, intense drama, and a huge love for film. 8/10 a great watch.

brchthethird Shion Sono is a filmmaker that I've several films from before, and I've never been less than impressed. WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL? continues that trend by delivering something completely bonkers, but also really funny and a little bit poignant. The plot, which is a bit difficult to sum up, is about this group of friends who make movies. Through a convoluted series of circumstances, they end up filming a Yakuza feud between the Muto and Kitagawa clans. One thing the film does extremely well is have a sense of fun about itself and not take itself too seriously. There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, and the over-the-top performances help a lot to set a manic tone. The film is also gloriously, even gleefully, bloody and violent. This might turn off a lot of viewers, but the insane levels of violence are largely played for laughs. I don't want to spoil anything specific, but there are several moments that practically made my jaw drop in incredulity. Finally, this film works as a love letter to film and shooting on film. The group of kids (later, adults) who are at the center of the story have a lot of fun shooting stuff on their 8mm cameras, but shooting this Yakuza feud on 35mm provides them with the opportunity they've been waiting for their entire lives. If there's anything negative to say about the film, it's that it might have bitten off a little more narratively than it could chew. At 130 minutes long, it juggles a lot of narrative threads and moving parts, some of which could have been trimmed. For starters there is a fairly long opening sequence that takes place 10 years before the events in the film proper. It sets up all of the necessary characters and relationships, but it could have been a little bit shorter. There's also a subplot about the daughter of one of the Yakuza boss' daughters who has aspirations to be a famous actress. Granted, this is necessary to how the burgeoning film crew comes into contact with the Yakuza, but I'm sure they could have come up with a less convoluted way to accomplish this part of the plot. Still, I will say that the film was never boring nor dragged. Not only does it have comic levels of violence and over-the-top humor, but the cinematography and editing keep things moving along at a good pace. And this all culminates in a final battle that alone is worth the money you spend on it. Overall, this is something that will probably mostly appeal to Shion Sono fans, or of Japanese cinema in general, but if you're in the mood for something weird you can't go wrong with this.

sgcim 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.

Joris Shion Sono, one of Japan's contemporary cult directors, makes a follow-up to cinephile hits like Suicide Club, Noriko's Dinner Table, Strange Circus, Hair Extensions, Love Exposure, Coldfish and Himizu. After The Land of Hope, his idiosyncratic sci-fi drama shot around the Fukushima disaster, the transgressive Sono makes another instant cult hit with Why Don't You Play in Hell? This definitely won't appeal to a mainstream audience and to be honest, at first I had quite some difficulties watching it myself. It all seems a bit over the top and because of that it felt amateuristic. On the other hand I suppose this is the authentic style Sono is known for. With some patience I endured the first half an hour. Once I got familiar with its peculiarities, irony, meta-references and subversive character, this film started to grow on me. Especially the part of the young movie team that has been procrastinating their film project for years; while this is more of a sideline to the story, Why Don't You Play in Hell? depends on it for its absurd climax. The only thing I couldn't get into was the over-the-top acting. Cool movie with a high DIY vibe, although not flawless.