Crows Zero I & II

I just watched parts of these two movies yesterday and though I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the second movie or not, I love the first one. Since it's directed by Miike Takashi, the style of the cinematography is very stylized and wonderful to watch. I'm a fan of Miike Takashi's works so this was a nice treat.

Basically, the story of Crows Zero is about young man named Takiya Genji, who is the son of a yakuza boss, and a transfer student at an all-boys school called Suzuran. His father tells him that if Genji wants to succeed him in the business someday, he has to conquer Suzuran first.

Suzuran is made up of gang-like groups and is a school with a lot of violent boys. The hierarchy goes as each class has a leader, and then depending on whether they win or lose in a fight, may become merged into a larger faction. The largest faction in the school belongs to a tough and skilled fighter/leader named Serizawa. After he beats up the top dog in a class or another faction, his group basically takes over that group. The only person who refuses time and time again to join him despite being beaten many times is a goofy fighter named Makise. Because he never bows down to Serizawa, he has his own small faction due to the amount of respected garnered from his pride.

Anyway, Genji begins to climb up this hierarchical ladder by beating up some people and creating his own group. Due to his charisma and ambition, he is able to garner the respect of a low-rank yakuza man, who was a Suzuran dropout, to help teach him the ropes of how to become a boss. He also became good friends with some of the people he beat up, or schemed to get to join his faction. People begin to see him as a leader, and his group gets bigger and bigger until Serizawa does not want to see it grow anymore. The battles between the two leaders start a civil war at the school ^_^

So basically, it's a very stylized version of Gokusen meets Aoi Haru. There is camaraderie, lots of violence, and some humor. The violence is very well-done though 'cause it looks pretty cool to watch. Miike Takashi is extremely talented when it comes to this sort of thing, so even though it's violent, you can't help, but be mesmerized by how well the direction was *__*

I love Oguri Shun in this movie, and Yamada Takayuki *__* I don't know why, but I just really liked this movie lol.