Bad Film

New York Premiere
Co-presented with The New York Asian Film Festival

In 1995, director Sion Sono and the performance collective Tokyo GAGAGA made this massive underground science fiction film about a gang war in Tokyo. They shot over 150 hours of footage but ran out of money during post-production. Now, almost 20 years later, Sono has finally finished the film!

In an alternate history 1997, Tokyo is a gangland war zone, divided between feuding factions from the Chinese Baihubang and the Japanese Kamikaze. The Kamikaze prowl the streets in a campaign bus, spewing vitriol from a loudspeaker; their leader is a bald lunatic whose only abiding passion is for a severed pig’s head he keeps in a plastic bag. The hyperactive narrator tells us that ancient race hatred is the war’s driving force. But when a Kamikaze girl meets a beautiful Chinese junk dealer, a lesbionic Romeo & Juliet story blossoms. Soon, they and the other closeted queers, freaks and cripples of the rival gangs band together to form a more perfect, omnisexual union. It appears that the years of old grudges and mutually assured destruction are at an end. Nothing could be stronger than love. Except hate.

Japan. 1995. 161 min. HD CAM, in Japanese and Mandarin with English subtitles. Directed by Sion Sono.

18+ This film is unrated, but may only be viewed by persons 18 years of age and older.

Part of JAPAN CUTS 2013

TICKETS
$12/$9 Japan Society members, seniors and students

Buy tickets online or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. – Fri. 11 am – 6 pm, Weekends 11 am – 5 pm.