 |
| Taken from the PV, as it's much more interesting than either of the actual title slates in the movie. |
Come 1992, V-Cinema's success had created a direct-to-video boom that led to other studios producing their own similar movies, with Toei Video producer Kazuo Kato later stating that the market had become so inundated with content that it got hard to tell what was what & (outside of V-Cinema still being a Toei-trademarked label) where it came from. This wasn't helped in any way by the fact that, by & large, most of these direct-to-video films were either action-heavy, yakuza flicks, or relied on lots of nudity & erotica. Therefore, some efforts were made to offer something different for the V-Cinema label, and one of those was a film titled Heart Breaker: Dangan Yori Ai wo Komete/From Love with a Bullet; there seem to be conflicting reports on whether it came out in 1992 or 1993. Instead of what had already become a "standard" V-Cinema this one went in a completely different direction by being a bit of a mystery film featuring, and I quote, "an all-musician cast & MTV-influenced hard action"; yes, this was a "dance action movie". Not just that, but the entire musical score for the film was composed by a young artist named Akio Togashi, who would shortly re-debut under a new moniker, m.c.A·T ("Microphone Controller Akio Togashi"). In fact, the first song Togashi would release under this new moniker would be a little song he first made for Heart Breaker, "Bomb A Head!". Now, if you're of a certain generation of anime fan (like me) you might be familiar with "Bomb A Head!" via m.c.A·T's 2004 self-cover, "Bomb A Head! V", which wound up being the OP theme to the TV anime adaptation of Tenjho Tenge & is, quite frankly, one of the coolest anime OP themes ever.
Yes, this is a rather silly reason to want to watch & write about a film... but Heart Breaker is actually considered a cult classic in Japan. In 1995 Kinema Junpo (Japan's oldest film magazine) ranked it #5 in the All Time Best Ten Japanese Movies' "Original Video" category, & in 2014 Toei Video itself considered it one of the 25 best titles in all of V-Cinema for the label's 25th Anniversary (alongside the likes of Ju-On 1 & 2, Crime Hunter, & Lady Battle Cop [i.e. "Female RoboCop"]), with Toei Video seemingly keeping it in print on DVD to this very day because of that. I was able to buy a brand new copy off of Amazon Japan just last year for around $15, and the YouTube channel FulciZombie's Film Grave uploaded it with English subs (via the captions) just last year; amazing that Toei Video didn't already copyright claim that yet. Therefore, what started off as an amusing little bit of amusement has turned into legit curiosity, so time to see if Heart Breaker truly is as good & memorable as it apparently is.
Kyohei Takakura (played by Yutaka Tadokoro, a.k.a. Diamond✡Yukai) is the self-proclaimed "Dancing Detective" due to his work often seeing him solve cases for local discos in East City. After dealing with a petty thief Kyohei takes a phone call, and while the caller has a lot of static he hears a request for him to "erase my past". This connects with a request being made in West City, Kyohei's hometown, by the manager of Lady M (Anna Banana), a rising music star (& old fling of Kyohei's) who's currently dealing with a string of high-quality bootleg releases messing with legit sales of her records. It's up to Kyohei to find out who has the master tape & retrieve it to stop the bootlegging, and he soon gets the help of Mami (Gwinko), a backup dancer who wants to meet Lady M in person, & Double K (Satoshi "Sou" Ichimura), a bit of a street shark whose connections may have an idea as to where the bootlegs are coming from... that is, if local gang the Battle Rockers led by Ryu (Masayuki Deguchi), an old friend of both Kyohei & Lady M, doesn't take them out first.
Heart Breaker is, first & foremost, meant to be nothing more than a fun time to be had for the 70+ minutes it asks of you. Yes, the story it tells is a serious one dealing with Kyohei needing to deal with a past he had left behind a decade ago, one where Lady M & he were lovers, while Ryu was their best friend who (unlike the other two) never left West City behind. However, the entire movie still tends to have a rather carefree & loose feel throughout, and while it's not a full on comedy by any means it also knows to poke some fun at our main trio. Kyohei looks like a cool, suave detective, complete with a sweet red jacket & black hat combo, but he's also absolutely fallible, like tripping over a wire while exiting after getting his job explained to him, or when first encountering the Battle Rockers he acts like he's ready for a fight, only to tell Mami & Double K that they all three of them need to run away. Mami, in turn, initially asks to help Kyohei seemingly just for the chance to talk to Lady M after initially failing her audition... due to Kyohei tripping over the wire that was playing the song she was dancing to. Over the course of the film, though, she falls for Kyohei & genuinely wants to continue helping him out as a friend she's crushing on, with there being a quick scene during a montage where she's looking at Kyohei intently... only for Kyohei to eventually tell her not to look, as it's revealed that he & Double K are taking a leak in front of a wall; like I said, the movie has no problem taking the piss out of its heroes *rimshot*.
Then there's Double K, who initially comes off like an unreliable con man, as he was selling a box of Lady M bootlegs that he came across, tricked Mami into buying some terrible tickets for a concert using a vague explanation, and even when handcuffed by Kyohei so that he wouldn't escape manages to escape come the next morning... just so that he could return with food for everyone to eat, having also stolen Kyohei's wallet to pay for everything. However, Double K is actually super reliable & trustworthy in the end, helping Kyohei fight back against the Rockers in the climax, and even helping Mami out when the two wind up getting into a dance off after running into a club, as a way of getting the Rockers off of them earlier on. Yeah, as explained, this is a "dance action movie", so there are a number of sequences where dancing is a main focus, though in reality it doesn't come up too often. There's the intro sequence, the audition introducing Mami (& Kyohei's job), the dance off Mami & Double K find themselves in, another dance sequence at the Rockers' hideout (which acts as a distraction for Kyohei & Co. to sneak in), and finally one at the very end utilizing almost everyone seen in the film (minus the Rockers), but all of them have some sort of actual purpose in the plot itself & aren't simply thrown in for the hell of it, which is neat. As for the rest of the cast there's really just Lady M & Ryu, who play into the main plot itself.
Lady M (a real name is never given for her) honestly comes off a bit enigmatic throughout the film, despite the main plot being about her, more or less. She's a great singer who seemingly had her first release back when she was still with Kyohei & Ryo, only to leave both behind for her career, and while she does have moments where she does feel some regret over how things played out (mainly in relation to Kyohei) she seems to be more or less fine with her current life, outside of the usual idea of the media overemphasizing her life & career, as seen during the few times she's hounded by paparazzi. As for Ryo, what's most surprising is that, in all honesty, he's kind of the most tragic figure of the entire cast. Essentially, after both Kyohei & M leave West City Ryo wound up all by himself, and while he eventually found a group to lead in the Battle Rockers he's more or less a man suffering from intense depression brought about from extreme loneliness & is even somewhat suicidal, as he often plays a solo game of one-shot Russian roulette, wondering if the next attempt he makes will finally be the one that ends his life; yeah, honestly rather dark stuff for what's otherwise a fairly upbeat & fun film. In fact, the entire situation with the master tape comes off more as Ryo simply forcing his two friends to reunite with him one last time, with the whole idea of making money via the bootlegging being more of a profitable side-effect done by his crew than anything substantial.
However, as mentioned, Heart Breaker is meant primarily to be a fun film, and that is definitely emphasized by the general feel & mood throughout by way of the dancing & music. To no surprise, there is sometimes of a bit of a music video vibe in certain shots & scenes, and that's because Heart Breaker was directed by Soichiro Komatsu, who has done music videos for various members of this movie's cast (his 1990 short film Step Out, starring Gwinko, especially put his name out in Japan), as well as the likes of Koji Kikkawa, HYDE, Shonan no Kaze, Da Pump, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, & even Katy Perry; Komatsu was also chosen to direct Namie Amuro's retirement concert in 2018. To be fair, by their very nature V-Cinema productions weren't big budget movies, and indeed most of the indoor scenes in this movie tend to feel like they were filmed within a single warehouse (& its hallways) that was simply dressed up in various ways for each scene. Naturally, outdoor scenes are indeed outdoors & there are a handful of unique indoor environments, namely anything regarding the giant tower seen in the beginning & end of the story, which in real life looks to be Fukuoka Tower. Still, there's an innate charm to the lower budget feel of a direct-to-video movie like this, and Komatsu's crew did a good job at utilizing things like lighting, camera angles, décor, & even a little fog to help make each (blatantly warehouse-filmed) indoor environment feel unique from each other. Alongside directing, Komatsu also co-wrote, planned, & edited Heart Breaker, so there's no doubt that this movie was a labor of love for him and the end product looks pretty good, considering V-Cinema limitations.
Komatsu also helped produce the dance sequences, though the choreography was handled by the Be Bop Crew, a dance troupe that formed back in 1982, is credited as forming Japan's "Lock, Soul, Street Dance Scene", & is even still around to this day, though its founder Yoshibow (who is in this movie as one of Lady M's dancers) sadly passed away back in 2016; Sou Ichimura is also a member of the group & even became its second leader in 2006. Simply put, all of the dancing in Heart Breaker is absolutely on point & a lot of fun to watch, and while all of the props naturally go to Be Bop Crew for the great choreography it's also props to the musicians & dancers who actually perform all of the dancing. This includes Gwinko, Ichimura, & Anna Banana, as well as other acts of the time like the three-woman group Amazons (who anime fans may know most recently for the various songs they performed for the City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes & Angel Dust movies) & Hiromi "Meyou" Kotani (not to be confused with the hip hop singer of the same exact stage name from the 00s). Amusingly enough, the only musicians in this movie that don't do any dancing are Diamond✡Yukai & Deguchi, plus a cameo from "Bro.KORN" Nobuaki Kondo. It's what makes the final dance sequence at the end really enjoyable, because you get to see all of the various dancers come together for a giant performance, and it is a cool sight.
Of course, the dancing is also backed up by a rather solid musical score. There are admittedly only eight songs by Akio Togashi for the score itself, but they are (fittingly) mostly upbeat tracks that fit the dance aesthetic of the film, sounding very much like stuff you'd hear played in a dance club of the era. Really, though, the highlights are the vocal tracks which are led by the iconic "Bomb A Head!" by m.c.A·T himself. In fact, Heart Breaker uses an earlier version of the song that's a bit simpler in execution when compared to the OG single from 1993, & even has some modified lyrics & a different chorus, but in some ways I actually kind of prefer it over the final version; there's also a vocalless version heard a couple of times in the movie. This specific version would eventually be included in a 20th Anniversary album in 2013 containing nothing but remixes of "Bomb A Head!", where it was titled "Bomb A Head! (1992)". After that another favorite of mine would be "Lucky Looking for Blindman Circus Show" by Diamond✡Yukai, which is used during the end credits & honestly makes me think it was some forgotten song by The Beatles that wasn't included in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; Yukai also performs an acoustic version of "Half 1/2" in character during the movie. There's also "Tengoku no Terebi" by Anna Banana, which is kind of the main attraction of the film's plot, as it's featured a few times throughout (including being what everyone dances to in the final dance sequence), & is a fun little pop song that quickly gets stuck in your head. The rest of the vocal tracks heard in the movie include
"Why?" by Meyou, "No No Boy" by Gwinko (which I honestly can't find any proof of existing, outside of this movie), & "Dirty Ol' Man ~Heart Breakin' Soul Mix" by Amazons (which looks to be a remixed cover of the song "Dirty Ol' Man" by The Three Degrees).
So did Heart Breaker act as a launching pad for future talent, as other V-Cinema titles would? Well, Diamond✡Yukai has continued to act on & off to this very day, while also becoming a celebrated musician in Japan; he even got attached to two anime, Rokudenashi BLUES 1993 & Yu-Gi-Oh ZeXal II. As for Gwinko, she actually stepped out of the limelight after 1994 when she moved back to Okinawa to help preserve & celebrate old Okinawan & Ryukyu culture, but in 2020 returned to music as part of the group Kina & Gwinko: Shoukichi Kina's Celebration Champloose with folk rocker (& activist) Shoukichi Kina. Masayuki Deguchi he still performs as a musician & singer, though today it's mostly as an indie artist that's a common sight in live houses. As mentioned earlier, Sou Ichimura is still a member of Be Bop Crew, but also works at the Japan University of Economics' Department of Creative Production as a professor who teaches dance; I can only hope he shows Heart Breaker to his students every year. Then there's Anna Banana, real name Anna Demeo, who continued to sing throughout most of the 90s, before joining the group RHYTHM Remedyz in 1997 & writing the lyrics to the first ED theme for the TV anime Shinkai Densetsu Meremanoid... before suddenly disappearing from the public eye, never to be heard from or seen again. It wasn't until May of 2024 that her music even started being available on modern services, like Spotify, and seemingly only her work up to 1992, which sadly means that "Tengoku no Terebi" isn't currently available, as that single came out in 1993. Amazons are also still performing to this very day, usually most often as back up singers to a variety of other artists, while Meyou seemingly left the industry some time after Heart Breaker's release. Really, outside of Diamond✡Yukai, the most successful people to come from Heart Breaker are Soichiro Komatsu & Akio Togashi/m.c.A·T, both of which are celebrated & iconic in Japan in their own rights.
There's no doubt that Heart Breaker: Dangan Yori Ai wo Komete having an "all-musician cast" was 200% a gimmick meant solely to ensure that this direct-to-video movie would be as entirely unlike what Toei's V-Cinema line had already become synonymous with; it's not a concept that automatically equates to "cinema" is all I'm saying. And, in fact, from what I can tell Heart Breaker was actually a bit of a failure when it first came out, which kind of indicated that people already had decided what to expect from V-Cinema, or at least up to that point; again, something like Ju-On wouldn't happen until 2000. However, over time Heart Breaker would find an audience & become a beloved cult classic in Japan, especially among those who are into the dance scene, and that's because this is just a fun film that knows what it wants to be. To be honest, if you look into the plot a little too hard you honestly kind of come to the conclusion that Kyohei & Lady M may be uncaring jerks who didn't pay any mind to Ryo's mental stability when they each decided to leave West City & instead allowed him to enter what could possibly be considered severe depression... but that's not what Heart Breaker wants you to think about.
Rather, it's a good movie with good music, good dancing, and a casual vibe that knows to have a little fun with itself throughout. Sure, the acting may not be amazing, but the performances still give the feeling that everyone had a grand old time making the movie, and in some instances that can override everything else, because when the people making the movie were having fun then ideally that should transfer over to the viewer having fun, too. While it's nice to see that this movie does have a translation over on YouTube I honestly would love to see Heart Breaker be given an official English release, and with Arrow Video about to release a box set called V-Cinema Essentials (which includes Crime Hunter), with the subtitle for said set indicating more sets like it for other types of films, maybe it's more a case of "when" rather than "if". As for me, I actually do have another piece of V-Cinema I've been thinking of covering for a good while (I didn't even realize that it was legit V-Cinema until I started looking into the line's history for this B-Side!), so I'm pretty sure I'll return to this well again in due time.
While this B-Side wasn't done as a joke, it was done as a bit of fun... so April Fools!
Movie © Toei Video
No comments:
Post a Comment