Cult status can hardly exist today in the age of the internet. While fans of cult phenomena have long told everyone who will listen about the object of such feverish adoration, the internet makes finding people willing to listen much easier, and those communities are much more visible, resulting in a rise to the surface much faster than may have been possible otherwise. Had they first come out today, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Eraserhead and even El Topo would quickly be turning heads on websites with decent readership.
Such is the fate of Tokyo Tribe, Sion Sono’s adaptation of a seinen manga that turns the story of an apocalyptic, gang-ridden Tokyo into a musical. Regardless of how one may define “cult,” this candy-colored, tech-noirish musical (think Rocky Horror by way of A Clockwork Orange) is destined for midnight showings for its exaggerated theatrics and humorous lyrics, as well as a bit of technical bravado.
Tokyo Tribe begins with a long tracking shot, first giving us a brief look at the citizens of a Tokyo that borders on the post-apocalyptic. The camera skirts by a DJ who seems to give us the first half of the film before suddenly disappearing, and then it follows a narrator-of-sorts, who eases us into the world with a calm rap that, musically, hints at grandiosity and eventually segues (at first without a cut) into a different timeline.
And grandiose the film is. A two-hour battle rap with a few actual battles in it, Tokyo Tribe borders on the incoherent, but that does not stop it from making its points. Tokyo Tribe is a film about the way people inflate meaning into essentially pointless struggles to justify their actions, even their existence. This manifests itself in a number of surprising ways, from a virgin encouraging her captors to rape her so she won’t be sacrificed by her maniacal High Priest father to a central conflict that ultimately comes down to the size of each party’s penis—humorous and overdone, perhaps, but a direct and maybe even accurate diagnosis of what makes men go to war.
Thinking about Tokyo Tribe is largely beside the point, though. The insert shots borrowed from comics, the fast wipes, the large shifts in color palette from scene to scene or shot to shot that denote different gangs and the constant music make the film a spectacular experience, not a cerebral one. That is not to say that the film is not worth thinking about. On the contrary, it raises interesting questions about representation and a film’s point of view vis-à-vis what it shows, but the film never pauses to allow that thought. Even when it references A Clockwork Orange—as it does multiple times but most brilliantly with a jarring Beethoven ringtone—Tokyo Tribe keeps going.
Two hours is a long time for bombastic, theatrical propulsion, and Tokyo Tribe admittedly has troubles filling it. When major plot developments take place, the tone of the film shifts heavily. When new elements, jokes and stunts are introduced to the spectacle, it regains both its charm and its entertainment value. And even the comparatively dull moments are only less interesting because of the sheer extravagance surrounding them – and nobody does extravagance like Sion Sono.