Photo: © 2016 Asmik Ace, Inc. / Toho Co., Ltd. / J Storm Inc. / Parco Co., Ltd. / Amuse Inc. / Otonakeikaku Inc. / KDDI Corporation / Gyao Corporation
Too Young To Die!
'Motherf**ker!' is the war cry of writer-director Kudo Kankuro's new extravaganza, a heavy-metal comedy that features hairstyles that could easily be mistaken for exploding crows and enough all-around bad-assery to send the whole current J-Rock scene back to study in Thatcher-era Birmingham. But beneath the feast of rock music and hilariously absurd reimaginations of Buddhist imagery, Kudo's film is a simple and sometimes deeply affecting tale of love and life choices. The story follows a high-school student, Daisuke (Kamiki Ryunosuke), literally down to hell. As it happens, the bus that the boy was on crashed, dragging the entire class to death. Daisuke is rudely awakened by the guitar-shredding demon Killer K (Nagase Tomoya) and his headbanging devil bandmates in a psychedelic version of Buddhist hell. Determined to reunite with his sweetheart Hiromi (Morikawa Aoi), who might still be alive, Daisuke makes a pact with Killer K to escape Inferno. But heaven and earth, it seems, are a few reincarnations away.