Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

user-899-95626 Crows Zero is an action movie which is based on "crows" manga. In this movie there is a violent high school named "Suzuran". The students makes their own group/gang and fight each other to be the head, the main boss/leader of that high school. One day a High Schooler as a transferred senior come to the Suzuran high school with a aim to conquer the whole school. He is the main character of the movie and his name is Takiya Genji (Shun Oguri)the son of a Yakuza boss named Takiya Hideo. During the freshman orientation assembly Yakuza arrive at the school seeking third-year senior Serizawa Tamao to avenge an injury.To show his worth, Genji fights and defeats the Yakuza, who mistake him for Tamao.

lee33089 I got this movie as a gift because I like Japanese movies. I wasn't expecting much, but I was completely blown away. Oguri Shun, Takayuki Yamada, and Sosuke Takaoka really deliver! It's in-your-face with violence, but the point of it is winning loyalty and friendships with people who start out as your enemies. I don't know if there are different versions of this movie, but reading some of the other reviews on here it sounds like there may be, because the start of my movie is Genji registering for school at Suzuran. It didn't really remind me all that much about Fight Club either...it's not based around a man's imagination or underground fighting, it's about gangs of boys just trying to make it through school and the changes they have to go through along the way. I definitely recommend watching it...I have seen it many times and it only keeps getting better. The sequel is just as good.

MisterWhiplash Takashi Miike is an extraordinary filmmaker, even if he works sometimes in circumstances that other directors might find ordinary, such as all of the genres that Miike tackles... which are, by a mild estimation, almost all of them. Name a kind of movie, Miike's probably done it, from family movie to samurai epic to just totally f***ed up way-past X-rated stuff, not to mention all of the Yakuza crime movies that by this time should be coming out of his nose from going over so often. But with Crows: Episode Zero, he found a way to tell a Yakuza story just a little different, by making it about the teenage kids (some of them, anyway) of the Yakuza who enroll in an "extreme" high school where it's basically not about learning anything but fighting and ascending the ranks to become the head of the school's bad-ass fightin' kids. It's the kind of movie that, if you are fourteen and watching it, it's like a near wet-dream of awesomeness. For the rest of us, the movie serves as lots of good fun.And as this is Miike, even the more conventional things in the movie like the whole 'I'm-doing-this-to-out-impress-my-dad' to the 'my-girl's-been-kidnapped' thing, get twisted just a wee bit. And, thankfully, a great dose of humor is sprinkled throughout with really random moments of hilarity (my favorite was when the teen is just talking to his friends on the roof, and casually takes a gigantic ball of some kind and rolls it away at a set of other kids all lined up like bowling pins who get knocked down in silly CGI style), and little lines and things with the characters (another highlight involves a guy trying to impress two girls in a bar, with some disastrous results). But when it's not being funny, Miike is also an excellent director of young, brawny actors who have a lot of energy and talent to burn. And he casts well enough for its target audience; the movie isn't quite violent enough (i.e. Ichi the Killer level) to make it unwatchable for teen eyes, so all of the guys like Genji and Serizawa are cast for ultimate bad-assitude.Indeed there are some scenes and moments that come close to being vintage Miike for this kind of tough and gritty action movie. There's a fight scene midway through, for example, that is done with no frills and with total excitement as a guy is fighting against a large group of people, and as it starts to rain and he looks down and out he gets back up and, staggeringly, knocks out almost all of them left. It's visceral things like that that work, but it's also how Miike, taking of course from a comic-book (if it weren't a comic-book one would swear a brilliant and ornery teen had written it), takes material that has originality and pumps it up to the level of an crazy sort of epic. Why this school exists and the parents don't mind sending them away to get the crap kicked out of them in a caste system is beyond me, but why carp? We believe it because Miike does, and gets us into the power struggle and the ascension of Genji, even if it means he might go crazy or if another teen, Tokio, possibly may die from a brain aneurysm.Then again, the movie also has some problems to it as well. The whole element of the girls being kidnapped could have been cut-out, or at least given with a little more development with the female characters before they're plucked away as a kind of plot convenience (if not contrivance) just so there's something else on the plate of 's***-we-need-to-take-care-of' in the story. And the climax of the film, imbued with a real epic sensibility with Genji and Serizawa fighting in a big battle with nearly a hundred students on each side to fight, stumbles a bit as its moments of raw power and energy are awkwardly cut with images of the one guy getting operated on in the hospital - it lacks tension or focus except that surgery is going on, who cares, lets get back to the wicked action - and as well a ballad sung by a woman (we see her singing on stage too) and the fighting done in slow motion. It's almost as if Miike goes too far in his excesses in this whole sequence, and ultimately half of it is really great and the other half is just... lame.But for any fan of the director's, or anyone looking for a kooky take on rebellious youth in Japan who are only a couple of steps removed from a Battle Royale scenario, it's a good ticket to take. There's tight acting and (mostly) hard-rocking Japanese punk tunes, and the action is often creative and engaging.

Onderhond Crows Zero is often cited as one of Miike's most commercial films. While this is hardly true (think Koshonin or One Missed Call) it certainly is one of Miike's slickest films gaining such international attention to date. The film has a solid budget, minimal weirdness and even a pretty linear and well-developed storyline. But it is still Miike alright. screen cap of Crows ZeroSetting for the film is a notorious high school where the scum of Japan gathers to gain control over their rivals. Gangs are started and wars are fought without any of the teachers interfering. While this by itself may sound like a streak of Miike weirdness it's actually not an uncommon theme in Japanese entertainment. The film itself is based on a manga, for those who haven't read it the film could best be described as a mix of Blue Spring, Volcano High and Cromartie High.Helping the setting is a typical Japanese J-Rock punk look and sound that gives each of the characters it's unique style. The weird dressing sense and crazy hairdos are lifted straight from a manga universe and, while a little silly, add a lot to the coolness of the gangs. Needless to say, there's a lot of posing and looking mean to be admired.The story is pretty simple as newcomer Genji is out to prove himself to his father and is willing to take on the top chief of the school. He impresses from the start and is able to work his way slowly to the top, where he will face Tamao to gain ultimate control of the school. There are no twists and turns so you know what to expect from the movie when it comes down to storyline development. screen cap of Crows ZeroVisually the film looks splendid, but indeed a lot slicker than earlier Miike films. There is not too much room for visual silliness anymore (although there is that bowling scene), though Miike makes excellent use of the budget he most obviously received. The action scenes in particular look stunning, with perfect use of fast forward and slow motion to increase the impact of the punches. The visual timing is spot on, aided by some very solid editing work. It's reassuring to see that Miike should not be limited to working with small budgets only.The soundtrack is a little less satisfying. Though I can live with the J-Rock sound in a film like this, the time spent on concerts and the like is a little too long. The R&B intermezzos are probably even worse and make the film a little too smooth in some scenes. A film like this could've done without them and probably would've benefited from it too.Acting is strong all round, with Shun Oguri showing off a lot of his abilities. Supporting roles are strong too, giving the film that little extra flair. And I'm always pleased to see Kenichi Endo liven things up a bit. Most importantly, the actors succeed in keeping a lighter tone throughout the scenes without hurting the gritty feel of the film.Crows Zero is not Miike's best film, though it will probably become one of his more popular ones. While the exterior of the film is a little slicker than usual there is still enough Miike weirdness left and some really bone crunching fights to behold. The film never slacks and even gives the viewer a nice look into the whole gang structure in between the fights, making it a little more than just another butt-kicking action flick.Miike is near perfect in setting the atmosphere for this film, only the music can be a little too much sometimes. Apart from that, I still prefer Miike as a loose gun director, but I can hardly criticize a film like this just because of that. A fun ride, intense where it needs to be and solid in all other areas. 4.0*/5.0*