Tag: Danhi Kinoshita

Match Monde (マッチモンド, Ryusuke Kurahashi, 2026)

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Scripted by Yugo Sakamoto, Ryusuke Kurahashi’s low-budget adaptation of the Shogo Horiuchi manga Match Monde seems to be aiming for a Baby Assassins vibe while placing a contemporary spin on the classic high school delinquents fighting manga. Unlike many similarly themed films, high school never actually features and most of the users of fighting app Match Monde appear to be long past high school age even if it’s supposed to be limited to those 18 and under. 

The title is a kind pun in that Match Monde operates in the same way as a dating app, though it allows members to find worthy opponents for fighting. Users can also monetise their pugilistic talents though taking the “bounty” from defeated opponents, or pick up tips through live streaming. It’s not really clear why Mikio (Kotaro Daigo) is on this app as he dislikes fighting and seems to be something of a coward. In the opening sequence, he waits outside pretending to play on his phone while his best friend Yuta is beaten up by a bullying gang of older kids that Mikio later hides in a bin to avoid. It’s while running away, however, that he bumps into Mahiro (Masayoshi Katsuki) who can’t really be bothered to fight anyone but gives Mikio some life advice to the fact that he should be fighting to protect something important rather than just to protect himself. 

Mahiro is a bit a stock character in these kinds of stories, walking around with a beatific smile permanently on his face and carrying a strangely vacant aura. Obviously, it turns out that he’s a top fighter and high school drop out who is willing to fight for Mikio after seeing him develop his resolve to stand up to the bullies rather than let his friend get beaten up on his own again. Like Baby Assassins, however, the film is perhaps a little bit more interested in the boys’ mundane lives than it is in the fighting. Mahiro ropes Mikio in to help out at a part-time job working in his childhood friend Suzuna’s cafe because he says he seems kind earnest, which is broadly true, while Mahiro struggles to knuckle down and work and fears letting his friend down in that way.

While it may have strongly homoerotic undertones, particularly in the relationship between sometime villain Mairu and his late “best friend” Kitano who was murdered after becoming a delinquent, the film’s humour is distinctly old school and in some ways spills over into sexism as the defeated bullies are seen acting in stereotypically feminine ways such as knitting scarves for each other. Meanwhile, Mahiro and Mikio aren’t really afraid of getting into fights with the delinquents, but are apparently terrified of being told off by Shizuna. 

The focus is indeed on traditional masculinity which is rooted in protecting those weaker than oneself, especially women, though here also avoiding becoming someone who deliberately picks on picks on easy targets to assert their dominance as Mikio had been doing. Perhaps the only reason he was on the app was to prove Yuta wrong when he called him a coward, though he quickly ends up being exploited by the bullies who force him to fight so they can take his winnings, as optimistic as that might be. As the so-called “Penniless King”, Mahiro comes to occupy the space of an underdog hero who isn’t even technically in the game, but ends up winning it anyway just by virtue of being a cool guy who’s good with his fists.

Speaking of which, the fight scenes are sometimes unpolished but generally well choreographed. There seems to be some attempt to set up a continuing series with repeated references to a friend who is no longer on the scene as well as an incongruous appearance by Danhi Kinoshita, the star of Takashi Miike’s Blazing Fists, seemingly in a background, non-speaking part as a random member of Mairu’s gang. The potential there is quite interesting given that the natural result of all these boys fighting is that they end up becoming friends, even as Mairu insists he wants to defeat all the delinquents in revenge for his friend’s death so he’ll be the only one left and they’ll cause no more harm. Who knew that what they were really fighting was loneliness? Maybe Match Monde is friendship app after all.

Match Monde screens 23rd August as part of Big Bad Film Fest.

Trailer (no subtitles)

Tokyo Burst: Crime City (TOKYO BURST-犯罪都市-, Eiji Uchida, 2026) [Fantasia 2026]

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Ma Dong-seok’s popular Roundup series has a rather convoluted history in terms of its titling. The first film was screened under the literal translated title “Crime City” before being retitled with the ironic “The Outlaws” while all subsequent instalments in the series have adopted the title of the first sequel. Nevertheless, this Japanese spin-off set in 2015 which is two years before the first film’s release, comes with the subtitle “Crime City” and though a Korean co-production does not actually feature Ma Dong-seok but rather attempts to tell a similar story set in the world of Kabukicho.

Which is to say that it takes its equally from delinquent high school manga such as Be Bop High School which is name checked within the film rather than the maverick cop hamstrung by bureaucracy trope that lies at the centre of the Korean series. Though The Roundup may itself have become increasingly less gritty as the series continues to expand, it largely remains grounded within a more concrete reality which is not really something you can say about Tokyo Burst: Crime City even if does hint at the ways in which the crackdown on yakuza has accidentally led other kinds of organised crime groups flourishing.

In this case, that would the incongruity of a crime syndicate led by a greedy host who heads the club Dreaming and presses those who work for him into petty crime if they can’t make their onerous quotas. In general, the stereotypical image of a “host” who earns money by drinking with women in dedicated bars, is of someone slightly effeminate and sensitive. Their livelihood depends on at least appearing non-threatening while providing the illusion of unconditional love and acceptance to their customers while also perhaps coming across as young, vulnerable, and in need of looking after. Though legislation has now been brought in to help stop hosts exploiting women financially until the point that they force them into sex work, the kind of masculinity they present is gentle and non-violent, which makes them a surprising presence in the ruthless world of organised crime.

Yet as is explained to Korean detective Si-won the major difference between the two nations is the extent to which police build relationships with underworld figures in order manage rather than eradicate crime in order to prevent large-scale violence breaking out, though Ma had also been doing something similar in the first Roundup film. The political corruption angle so common in Korean films in which the sons of chaebol families are effectively above the law plays a less well in the Japanese setting while a subplot about a land rights for casino construction,  and upcoming election, the thuggishness of the Deputy Prime Minister’s son, and their collaboration with organised crime facilitated by the familiar face of Ma’s sometime sidekick Jang Yi-soo, seems underdeveloped and impossible to take seriously given the film’s cartoonish tone.

Nevertheless, The Roundup’s uncomfortable tendency to make light of police brutality is fully carried over as violent cop Shiro actively covers up security cameras to interrogate suspects, while the police are also guilty of making use of connections to speed up or frustrate justice. They are otherwise a comically bumbling bunch as is yakuza boss hold-out Iwaki frustrated at the loss of his turf to the host club upstarts. Shiro stands somewhere in the middle as a bruiser cop with a strong sense of justice but perhaps not so much ethics. Nevertheless, he eventually bonds with his new Korean partner through singing Linda, Linda at karaoke while becoming invested in his quest to catch those responsible for his late partner’s murder before they return to the safety of Korea where they are otherwise above the law. Despite the overarching silliness, there is an endearing sense of lived-in community in the Kabuchiko environment of which Shiro is at the very centre and even if the film refuses to take anything else to seriously, it does at least commit to the ferocity and carnage of its intermittent action scenes.

Tokyo Burst: Crime City screened as part of this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

Trailer (no subtitles)