Sion Sono’s Tokyo Tribe is, to put it mildly, 2015’s most deliriously over-the-top creation. A violent, messy, occasionally uproarious (and frequently off-putting) hip-hop musical, this latest genre stew from the director of Why Don’t You Play in Hell? is set in a futuristic Japan of rival street gangs. Based on a popular Manga series, Tokyo Tribe is, well, unlike anything else to grace screens in recent memory. It is, then, vintage Sion Sono.
The film has finally been released in U.S. theaters and on VOD, and interestingly, the prolific director’s latest film, The Whispering Star, made its world premiere at September’s Toronto International Film Festival. The Film Stage was able to line him up for a brief email interview to promote Tokyo’s long-awaited American release.
What appealed to you about the manga series you adapted for Tokyo Tribe? And what made the musical the right genre for your adaptation?
I still do not why, but the producer brought me this project one night. And at that time, I was in a good mood drinking, so I confirmed the offer right away.
The idea of doing all the dialogue in rap and casting the real hip-hop rappers came through the process as I was searching for the way to output the hip-hop culture which is the core of the original comic books.
The opening of the film with the long, single-take, is stunning, and I noticed there are numerous long, unbroken takes throughout Tokyo Tribe. The roving camera almost becomes a character. Was this a tool to immerse the viewer in the world of Bukoro?
In the original novel, there are actually lots action scenes which we could never shoot with our budget range. I had to think of something else instead of doing it. I [decided] to make the actors do real action without any stunts. So by filming lots of scenes with the long, single-take, I thought it could prove — and the audiences could see — that my actors did the action without stunts.
Considering the popularity of hip-hop in North America, what kind of reaction do you expect from audiences?
My friend Akihiro Kitamura, who’s in Tokyo Tribe as Mukade, the shop owner at SAGA town, and is also known as the actor from The Human Centipede, lives in Los Angeles. A while ago, I received a call from him saying, “I just heard some people in the music club talking about Tokyo Tribe.” And so he actually asked them the details of what they had been talking about and found out that the guys there were a bit ashamed that Japan made the hip-hop/rap musical before they did.
The Whispering Star recently made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, a fest you have visited frequently in recent years. What do you recall about screening Why Don’t You Play in Hell? and Tokyo Tribe at TIFF? And how was this year’s TIFF experience?
The audiences at TIFF are very warm and kind, and they have the right eye to watch film. In the sense, I would say the audience award which I won with Why Don’t You Play in Hell? at TIFF means a lot.
The Whispering Star is nothing like my [usual] entertaining films, but is a black and white, very quiet film. I was a bit worried how the audience would receive it, but it looked like they accepted the film well. I wasn’t really expecting to hear people laughing during the screenings, but they did.
Since I have attended TIFF so many times now, I feel very welcomed. And this year, I was so honored and very happy to receive the festival’s NETPAC Award for World or International Asian Film.
Tokyo Tribe is now in limited release and available on VOD.