Reviews

John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon cameos and Executive-Produces this social/political fantastic coming-of-age film. Nikolaj adores his eccentric hippie parents, especially his extremely unconventional father. Christmas is celebrated around a tree strung with bananas (summing up the father's feelings regarding the religious reasons for the holiday), and the holiday's good-humored Christmas dinner table blessing includes quotes from Nietzsche challenging beliefs in Christ and/or Christianity. But when Nikolaj's mother dies in a tragic accident, Nikolaj's anger helps to guide him toward punk, The Sex Pistols and a need to rebel against the hypocrisy and bleak future that he now sees his school, society - and yes, even his dad - leading him to. The problem is, rebelliousness has always been encouraged, not disciplined, in Nikolaj's home. Plus, Nikolai's dad was also badly damaged, and is now feeling a similar need to lash out. How do you stand up against your father when he begins following you down YOUR path and listening to YOUR music? Plus, he goes so far in supporting your rebelliousness that he actually comes to your school - rather brilliantly - to defend you when you are threatened with discipline after throwing a bottle at your school principal, hitting him in the head, during a bullshit public speech. Effectively, your dad is growing up just as much as you are. But still, there remains much to lash out against. For one, Nikolaj's father drags him along as he retreats to a hippie nudist colony, a personal journey for dad that turns out to be about little more than a need to shagg some woman from behind in the bushes. Then there's his dad's overly familiar playfulness with one of Nikolaj's teen-aged female friends. The last straw is broken, however, when Nikolaj's band gets their 1st public gig and - needing a drummer after their regular one has a bad reaction to some drugs - Nikolaj's father is called upon by the band to sit in with them. SONS OF NORWAY is a delightful and very thoughtful film that provides seems honest, while avoiding easy answers.

Very definitely worth seeing, Miike's latest starts out wonderfully strong, but tends to bog down during the middle third of its 131 minute running time. Though based on a manga, this is also a clever send-up of romantic/tragic musicals that - at its best - sets hilariously cheesy dance numbers to vintage Japanese pop songs (one song sounds very much like a variation on "Urami Bushi", aka "The Grudge Song", popular from both FEMALE PRISONER #701: SCORPION 701 and KILL BILL: Vol. 2, while another would appear to be the theme song to the 60's TV cartoon show, WOLF BOY KEN). FOR LOVE'S SAKE also features a lot of violent, over-the-top fight scenes, perhaps too many of which involve the male heartthrob nearly punching the life out of a adoring schoolgirls (I found these scenes a bit repetitive after a while). Still, despite it's drawbacks, fans of Miike will not want to miss this one.

I loved this! Kara Hui, Jimmy Wang Yu and Donnie Yen all give absolutely terrific performances, with Yen's perhaps being the best of his career. Lots of wire assist in the martial arts, but it works in the context of the film, and besides... Hui and Wang aren't exactly spring chickens, so its great to see them in anything, much less doing such fine work in such a fantastic film! Plus, as one or two others have noted, though there are martial arts in this movie, I would not exactly call this a martial arts film. Regardless, it is easily among director Peter Chan's best, Chan - of course - also being responsible for HE'S A WOMAN, SHE'S A MAN / COMRADES: ALMOST A LOVE STORY / the GOING HOME segment from THREE / and Jet Li's THE WARLORDS).

The film also stars Takeshi Kaneshiro. He portrays an investigator who humorously refuses to believe that it was simply accidental, bumbling, good luck that allowed Yen's country bumpkin, Jinxi (intentional wordplay?), to win out in a battle with two notorious murdering thugs. Instead, he believes Jinxi is hiding his martial arts skill (much as TV's Columbo would hide his intelligence), though each time he puts Jinxi to a cruel and painful test, the result is the same... Jinxi proves to be less than he seems, not more. But that's when Kara Hui and Jimmy Wang Yu enter the picture, and they too think that Jinxi is hiding his true identity, and they're willing to murder or maim his loved ones in order to force him to reveal his hand. And speaking of hands, there's a very nice homage to Wang Yu's ONE ARMED BOXER and ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN in the final chapter of this funny and dramatic film.