This is a movie about a dorky baseball player that becomes a man. The movie starts out with a baseball game and focuses on this character and shows how he is apathetic towards life, a born loser. He sucks at baseball, nobody really likes him that much and he has no girlfriend.
When he goes back to his job, a gangster from the Yakuza, Japanese mafia, is complaining about the carwash he got. So then the baseball player guy (i can't keep all these Japanese names in order) tries to hit him but is blocked. THe gangster says he broke his arm and goes to the doctor. Well this doesn't sit well with the Yakuza so they want to carwash owner to become part of his gang.
The coach of the baseball team, now a bar owner, used to be in the Yakuza. He tells them to not give the kid any trouble, but to make himself clear he beats the living crap out of the guy that took over his job. Now, this movie doesn't have a lot of blood, but every scene of violence is brutally disturbing. You don't expect it. The sea is calm and then all of the sudden a 100ft tidal wave destroys the shoreline. Anyway, that guy gets paid back by getting beaten so bad he he can't walk. He says he is going to get a gun and kill the yakuza boss, but since he can't walk the baseball player and his other outcast friend go to Okinawa to buy a black market gun from the military base.
One the way they meet "Beat" Takeshi, and I probably bet they wish they hadn't. The whole middle of the movie deals with their adventures with Takeshi's completely sadistic, perverted, insane character. Never in a movie has there been a likeable but aslo highly dispicable character all in the same person. He has no morals but he does, he hates everyone but he loves his friends. He's a paradox. I guess they put that whole part in as a way to show the two baseball players loss of innosense as they witness multiple acts of gratuitous sex, dismemeberment, murder and arms dealings.
The two guys return to the outskirts of Tokyo and take the gun to the Yakuza headquarters. In attempting to fire it, the gun jams and two of the tree guys get beaten severely. The "star" baseball player then returns and drives a gasoline tanker straight into the headquarters, blowing up the whole thing.
This movie is unlike any American film. I have recently turned to only watching foreign films because of my utter distaste for hollywood garbage and this film has definately pleased me.
When he goes back to his job, a gangster from the Yakuza, Japanese mafia, is complaining about the carwash he got. So then the baseball player guy (i can't keep all these Japanese names in order) tries to hit him but is blocked. THe gangster says he broke his arm and goes to the doctor. Well this doesn't sit well with the Yakuza so they want to carwash owner to become part of his gang.
The coach of the baseball team, now a bar owner, used to be in the Yakuza. He tells them to not give the kid any trouble, but to make himself clear he beats the living crap out of the guy that took over his job. Now, this movie doesn't have a lot of blood, but every scene of violence is brutally disturbing. You don't expect it. The sea is calm and then all of the sudden a 100ft tidal wave destroys the shoreline. Anyway, that guy gets paid back by getting beaten so bad he he can't walk. He says he is going to get a gun and kill the yakuza boss, but since he can't walk the baseball player and his other outcast friend go to Okinawa to buy a black market gun from the military base.
One the way they meet "Beat" Takeshi, and I probably bet they wish they hadn't. The whole middle of the movie deals with their adventures with Takeshi's completely sadistic, perverted, insane character. Never in a movie has there been a likeable but aslo highly dispicable character all in the same person. He has no morals but he does, he hates everyone but he loves his friends. He's a paradox. I guess they put that whole part in as a way to show the two baseball players loss of innosense as they witness multiple acts of gratuitous sex, dismemeberment, murder and arms dealings.
The two guys return to the outskirts of Tokyo and take the gun to the Yakuza headquarters. In attempting to fire it, the gun jams and two of the tree guys get beaten severely. The "star" baseball player then returns and drives a gasoline tanker straight into the headquarters, blowing up the whole thing.
This movie is unlike any American film. I have recently turned to only watching foreign films because of my utter distaste for hollywood garbage and this film has definately pleased me.