First Love (2019)

...gradually building steam until it reaches a sustained pitch of cheerful insanity.

Eye-popping is one way to describe the prolific Japanese director’s 103rd film, a cheerfully pulpy Tokyo-set noir.

This hard-boiled piece of pulp fiction thaws into a hysterically violent absurdist comedy about the implosion of the Japanese underworld.

...far more impressive for how it collides its many characters than what it ever feels for them.

...combines a slapstick yakuza crime story with young romance. And I love it.

...everyone is at war here. The yakuza, the triads and the police go at it incessantly. Buckle up.