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A young boxer and a call girl get caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme over the course of one night in Tokyo.
Sep 27, 2019 | Theatrical Limited (40 locations)
Other Key Dates
May 17, 2019 (Cannes Film Festival (France))
Jul 6, 2019 ()
Sep 13, 2019 (Toronto International Film Festival (Canada))
Sep 17, 2019 (New York Asian Film Festival (USA))
Sep 21, 2019 (Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival (France))
Oct 4, 2019 (Busan International Film Festival (South Korea))
Oct 11, 2019 (BFI London Film Festival (UK))
Oct 12, 2019 (Warsaw Film Festival (Poland))
Nov 10, 2019 (Stockholm International Film Festival (Sweden))
Nov 12, 2019 (Mar del Plata Film Festival (Argentina))
Nov 20, 2019 (Night Visions International Film Festival (Finland))
Nov 29, 2019 (Singapore International Film Festival (Singapore))
Dec 5, 2019 (Splat!FilmFest Horror Film Festival (Poland))
Dec 7, 2019 (International Film Festival & Awards . Macao (Macao SAR China))
Dec 9, 2019 (Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival (Brazil))
Jan 5, 2020 (Palm Springs International Film Festival (USA))
Jan 23, 2020 (International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands))
Feb 14, 2020 (Copenhagen Asian Film Festival (Denmark))
Feb 24, 2020 (DVD premiere (Norway))
Jun 10, 2020 (Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival (Lebanon))
Sep 9, 2020 (MOTELX - Lisbon International Horror Film Festival (Portugal))
$21,151
$218,329
$5,630,226
$5,848,555
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Country of Origin: Japan
Leo is a young boxer, successful but unable to show emotion. He has a fight scheduled and is sure that he will win. Instead, his opponent knocks him out. This triggers a chain of unpleasant events involving drugs, corrupt cops, the Yakuza, a female assassin – and Monica, an escort that he must rescue. It’s one hell of a night for Leo. — aghaemi Never mind a New York minute: it’s in a Shinjuku second that one risks losing one’s head in First Love, and when Midnight Madness institution Takashi Miike is winding the clock, you can trust we mean that literally. The latest from the prolific provocateur gets rolling with all that’s north of a Yakuza’s neck tumbling into the neon-drenched streets of Tokyo – an indelible image that assures us that, despite the film’s starry-eyed title, this is romance in the key of Miike. When the schemes of duplicitous punk Kase (Shota Sometani) go comically awry, doomed boxer Leo (Masataka Kubota) and haunted drug addict Monica (Sakurako Konishi) find themselves inadvertently caught in the cross-hairs of two warring gangs. Over the course of an increasingly ridiculous night, a soulful meet-cute between the two innocents transpires – one injected with that signature brand of poetic pandemonium that Midnighters have grown to revere over the course of Miike’s now 104 directing credits. That this infectious pastiche coheres as well as it does is a testament to the grounded foundation laid by frequent Miike collaborator Masaru Nakamura (Dead Or Alive 2: Birds, Sukiyaki Western Django), whose script wittily weaves its hyperbolic characters towards a thoughtful expression of the concept of Hatsukoi (first love). Capturing the yearning that blooms with one’s first brush with romantic feeling, Miike and Nakamura cut to the heart of it and distill it down to that instant when a person resolves to live for another besides themselves – be it with fists raised, or swords drawn. — Toronto International Film Festival