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Sakigake!! Otokojuku (Be A Man! Samurai School) -

Tak Sakaguchi's directorial debut, also written, starring, and choreographed by him. The story revolves around four rebellious youths being sent to Otokojuku, a famous tough-as-nails reform school for young Japanese men who need to be taught discipline and nationalism. The movie as a whole feels more like the episode of a J-Drama, the structure is a little weird; the first half of the film is dedicated to showing Otokojuku's harsh training practices and "classroom" scenes, and then the second half all of a sudden switches gears to an ex-Otokojuku student coming back to conquer the school, and the Amazing Triple-Death Battle that entail between three of the protagonists (not to mention a portion of the movie that completely veers off and follows one of the main characters, Togashi, on his really random blind date with a really random school girl). I found a lot of the educational scenes hilarious, despite not picking up on a lot of the humor as its so regional. The acting performances are also reminiscient of J-Drama, a little hammed up but sufficient and entertaining. The only thing I had a problem with was character aspect; Hidemaro is technically the main character and a good portion of the plot is dedicated to his "coming of age" and the discovery of his own courage, but he only really does anything in one major scene, whereas Momotaro (Tak's character) was the main protagonist in the manga. Thus Tak is featured prominantly throughout the film and in the advertising and has most of the action and "cool" scenes, but in turn has no character development. It's a little head-scratching, but doesn't really detract from the feel of the film too much.
There's not a whole lot of action, and what is there is pretty standard fair if you're a fan of Tak or Zero's Action Team, but it's good nonetheless. It's fast, with a lot of HK-style exchanges, "flurries," and the MMA-inspired techniques Tak is such a mark for, but is also distinctly Japanese. Tak has three real fights: an introductory scrap with some Bosozoku, a challenge during the first day of training at Otokojuku, and his part of the Amazing Triple-Death Battle in the fire-pit deathmatch (which is also Tak Sakaguchi and Hideo Sakaki's third on-screen matchup). Most of the Amazing Triple-Death Battles are not really very amazing, mostly degenerating into comic gags. I liked the last fight a lot, unfortunately it is interrupted frequently by another major scene in the finale, and eventually dissolves into a muddled back-and-forth war of attrition which is a little boring. After that, the film is ended in a very heartfelt and clever way.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started watching Sakigake!! Otokojuku, but I'm pretty sure I liked what I saw. It's a little disjointed and the fairly polished production makes the internal errors stand out a little more, but all in all it was very entertaining and had a good message; a decent extremely-Japanese action/comedy which is helped by a great cast and some cool costumes. Osu!

3.5/5