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Review

Ultra-violent, raucous and, at times, hilarious, Hard Romanticker manages to be both very disturbing and breezily fun at the same time. The story follows a handsome young thug named Gu who lives by his own code and ends up pissing off every tough guy and yakuza in his neighborhood and goes into hiding. There are many, many fight scenes, chase scenes, beatings, moments of gratuitous nudity and plot curveballs (many of which don't seem to go anywhere.) If The Warriors and A Clockwork Orange had an orgy with Ichi the Killer, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and an episode of "The Three Stooges," the mutant spawn would look a bit like Hard Romanticker.

Though it's sometimes difficult to figure out the narrative and who is who in the hierarchy of the Japanese underworld, the first half is a bit more fun than the second half. This may be due to the score. The first half is all tongue-in-cheek horns, flutes and groovy bass jams (much like early '80s Japanese sexploitation cinema) while the second half, for some reason, switches to the maudlin strings of melodrama and romance. Don't worry, though, the movie doesn't get sentimental at all, just the music. The movie also derives much of its strength from Gu, himself, a cool customer who's a little bit James Dean and a little bit Chili Palmer, as well as the fuck-it-all attitude of pretty much everyone involved from the women who are exploited and used as sex objects to the abusive cop who wants Gu to turn informant to Gu's friend, a higher-up in one of the gangs who smilingly tells his boss that life isn't so bad... while he's being beaten to the brink of death.

There's definitely something discordant about a film with such shocking violence that often feels like a cartoon. The effect of this combination is a little jarring, but the discordance never feels wrongheaded. It's actually a breath of fresh air to find a film that manages to present disturbing acts, then laugh at them, then highlight the horror of them, only to laugh at them again before moving on. We're not entirely sure what director/co-writer Su-yeon Gu is getting at, but, as the film is semi-autobiographical, he may not be getting at anything, just presenting the realities of criminal life in Japan in all its violence and absurdity. Whatever the case, Hard Romanticker is a fantastically fun film to watch and definitely worth repeated viewings.

 -- Stone Davis