IMW - Hard Romanticker

                              

I watched this after watching Duelist. This is a Japanese movie. As usual take a peek at the trailer.

Details ----

Romaji: Hadoromanchika

Japanese: ハードロマンチッカー

Director: Su-Yeon Gu

Writer: Mitsunori Gu, Su-Yeon Gu

Producer: Kimio Kataoka, Masahiro Harada, Naoya Kinoshita, Haruki Kadokawa, Shigeyuki Endo

Cinematographer: Hideyuki Bushu

Release Date: November 26, 2011

Runtime: 109 min.

Genre: Action

Production Company: Toei

Distributor: Toei

Language: Japanese

Country: Japan

Plot---

Gu (Shota Matsuda) is a hard-nosed Korean-Japanese hoodlum living in Shimonoseki, Japan. When friends "accidentally" kill the grandmother of a ruthless North Korean-Japanese thug, a whirlwind of violence and revenge is set to explode. In the process, Gu, having no fear, pisses off a string of other criminal gang members and Korean-Japanese thugs who all want him dead. There's also Detective Fujita (Atsuro Watabe) lingering in the shadows looking for Gu, but where is Gu?

Meanwhile, Gu lucks his way into a managerial job for a hostess club, run by a suave man named Takagi (Shido Nakamura). Instincts tells Gu that Takagi is more than he seems. In fact, Takagi works for a rival gang and may be involved with drugs. When Gu returns to Shimonoseki all hell is about to break loose.

Cast---

Shota Matsuda - Gu

Kento Nagayama - Tatsu

Atsuro Watabe - Det. Fujita

Shido Nakamura - Takagi   

Tokio Emoto - Masaru

Kaname EndoPark - Yono

Sei Ashina - Natsuko

Yoko Maki - wife of crime boss  

Dai Watanabe - Masa

Claude Maki - Shoji

Keiko Awaji - Gu's grandmother

Hakuryu - Wakatama

Gota Watabe - Yasuda

Yuma Ishigaki - Ipakki

Jyonmyon Pe - Kantefan

Yuya Endo - Kimuchongi

Motoki Ochiai - Park Yono's brother

Nobuaki Kaneko - Takashi

Naoki Kawano - Kaneko

Ayaka Tomoda

 (Credits --- AsianWiki)

Review----

I present to you one of the wonderful actors in Japan Matsuda Shota. I and some couple of friends were waiting for this movie to be subbed since it's release last year. It got subbed sometime this year.

Here, Shota plays the role of a loner, he was quite cruel and brutal also. This movie has no plot, there's no particular substance to this movie. It just tells a story about the kind of world Gu (Shota's character) is living in and it shows a some particular events that happened to him. I'm going to quote what a friend told me hehehe ''Don't expect a happy ending''. That's what she actually told me hehehe. Gu is surrounded by gangsters and he's a gangster himself, he doesn't just belong to any gang. In his world, there's the issue of doping, pimping of teenage girls, unnecessary fighting and all.

 Some minutes into watching HR, I gave up on the happy ending thing..... then towards the middle, I actually had some kind of hope....... but that got blown away before the end of the movie.

I didn't feel an ounce of pity for the casts in HR, including Gu himself, like the saying goes....  How you lay your bed, that's how you lay on it. So, if you're a fan of Shota and you want to see how dynamic and versatile he can be, then definitely need to give HR a shot. For those looking for something light...... this isn't something light, but you can also give it a try.