When I told my brother that I was going to watch Tokyo Tribe, he asked me what it was about. I hesitated and said, "tribes" and he said "Sounds good" which to me sounded sarcastic. So I added and said, "Well you see, the director likes to add weird and crazy stuff in his films and...yeah, I don't know." So there you have it. Tokyo Tribe. Tribes. Crazy stuff. Music. Fighting. And chaos. Lots of it. But it's Sion Sono. As I said to my brother, Sono always manages to add insanity in his films and still manage to make it work. If you watch a Sono films, you're transported to his world, his rules, his creation, his everything. With a crazy yet satisfying 4-hour journey from Love Exposure to blood fountains that swept me off my feet in Why Don't You Play in Hell, Tokyo Tribe might have just taken Sono's style to the next level. Bursting energy and life and music and characters from start to finish, you'll be the one feeling exhausted (yet also satisfied) as the credits roll. In Sono's world, you got to keep up. You're also there in the film alright. Tokyo Tribe is messy, chaotic, loads more to improve it but like others, it doesn't matter. It's not about following traditional storytelling or traditional film-making, it's about presenting something with creative freedom as much as you like. Sono embodies that, Tokyo Tribe embodies that. Mix that here, put that there, add more here, even if things don't make sense, whatever! It's entertainment, it's about having fun. It's filled with pleasure and enough to keep you at the edge of yourself -- if you're used to Sono's style. It's a big big cast alright but having such a truckload of people in a film makes it all the more enjoyable, it makes it all the more fun. It's not character-focused, you're not suppose to give a shit about anyone, you're just suppose to sit there and watch and laugh and enjoy. That's what you're suppose to do. These actors aren't that great singers (although one of the leads, Kai is from a J-pop band, he's not an actor but who cares because it doesn't matter) but that too doesn't matter. This isn't about music. It's about having fun! Sono just adds music because it doesn't feel like it belongs there (so Sono like!) but that's what makes it stand out. He always manages to put the bizarre and weird and make it look good. (To be honest, watching Sometani laugh made me crack up a lot. Still manages to keep his signature look that I love even as a rapper. He's definitely a chameleon, whatever role he takes and clearly Sono loves him -- with good reasons.) As always though, my take on Sono films is that they tend to be misogynistic. Loads of (unnecessary) boob shots, underwear shots and all that (I mean Love Exposure is all about that!) but I feel like he tries to compensate for that by giving us badass/I-can-save-myself female characters. And here, we have female characters that can fight. So thank goodness. There is so much colors, so much sound and just so much everything, you don't have time to think, no time to react as each scene continues to drive you crazy. Sono proves his mastery at creating films that are filled with whatever the heck he can think of and want at his will and still make them something worth watching -- a genius.