Young Thugs: Innocent Blood (1997) Once we finish high
school, a good deal of kids go off to college where they can sponge off mom and
dad, get drunk, smoke dope, engage in meaningless and dangerous sex, and skip
classes that don't any have any real-world value anyway. But what happens to
the losers? What about those young people for whom high school is the end of
any structured activity in life? What about kids who don't have the benefit of
aimless college life to provide them some direction? Is life for these
outcasts pre-determined to be a series of vicious beat downs, screwed up
relationships, and car trips bathed in crude humor and ending in bizarrely
comic tragedy? According to director Takeshi Miike (Full Metal Yakuza, Audition, Shinjuku Triad Society) the answer is a resounding "yes!"
And that's good news for the audience, because Young Thugs: Innocent Blood allows Miike to open up the lives of some Osaka youth for examination and
manages a keen balance between the expected brutality and the quieter and more
painful moments (such as when Riichi gets tomato juice poured over his head by
his ex-girlfriend because all he can say is sorry about messing up their
relationship, and well, she just wants a little bit more of an explanation than
"sorry"). Miike grew up in Osaka so there is an affinity here between him and
his characters that perhaps explains why despite what appears to be simply yet
another film where young adults live only for the cheap kicks and empty thrills
that a rumble with a rival gang can bring, the focus is more on their
interactions with one another as well as their rough road to adulthood.  That's not to say that this is some weenie tale of guys posing and somberly
announcing that life is meaningless in the way that can turn off audiences with
its ponderous seriousness such as the Japanese high school thug movie, Blue Spring. Though much of Young Thugs: Innocent Blood vacillates between bouts of violence and bouts of breaking up, there's a
surprising amount of humor to be had as well. Unlike the world theorized in Blue Spring, those moments when you're on the cusp of being thrust full bore in the "adult
world" aren't merely full of endless navel gazing about how nothing matters
(usually accompanied by an artfully dangling cigarette and a frown), but are
full of a variety of events and emotions. That doesn't mean that you still
can't beat a guy up with a ball bat to express your self-loathing for the
feelings of worthlessness an uncaring society has instilled in you, it just
means that in between beatings you can still laugh and hang out with friends.
This real-world view of nihilistic punks is purportedly a semi-autobiographical
take on some elements of the real life of the main character's (Riichi)
experiences as a kid trying to find his way in Osaka. I don't think though
that you can confuse this movie with documentary about his life though, since
the interview of Miike on the DVD seems to indicate that he wanted to show what
life was generally like for kids that age in Osaka, that basically after you
graduated or dropped out of high school, you wanted to do nothing more than
move in with your friends and drink and smoke all night. Naturally, the cinema
being a visual medium, you're going to have to spice that up a little bit, thus
we have Riichi getting thumped in a batting cage, a car chase, and even a kid
pooping his pants. And though it sounds like these distinctly big-screen
flourishes shouldn't work, it's a tribute to Miike and the two screenwriters
that it all flows effortlessly, like a kid with really loose bowels.  The focus of the movie is on Riichi and his girlfriend Ryo. Best friends
during their high school days, they seem to have a solid, playful relationship
and to genuinely like each other. But being soulmates is no match for Riichi
running into his first love, who is now some hot babe that may just be a hooker
(I never quite figured it out, but if she wasn't, I don't know what her "work"
was that she was always going off to do). Announcing that he's bored with Ryo,
he takes up with this new girl and begins to hang out with his two male friends
a lot less. Riichi changes in other ways as well. Before meeting his new
woman, he was one of the "young thugs" of the title and lived only to fight
other toughs in the street. He was the kind of young thug who could get
stabbed in the leg, continue battling and end up at the hospital demanding that
he be stitched up without anesthetic. By the time his new girlfriend gets
through re-making him, he's a giant wuss who just lays there and takes his
beatings without fighting back. Definitely not a good idea if you've built
your reputation in the neighborhood as "that crazy bastard that will bash your
head in for breathing too loud - and do it with a smile."
As the movie progresses, it takes an interesting path that's partly explained
by the nature of the two screenwriters. One was male and one was female. The
each wrote the parts for their own sex and this gives us a more powerful female
character in Ryo (and her friend) than we otherwise may have seen. Ryo isn't
just "the girlfriend" in this movie, she's as much a part of the story as
Riichi is and after she gets dumped, her efforts to understand and cope with
this seemingly incomprehensible event give the movie an emotional weight that
surprises you. And as we deal with the disintegration of this coupling, one of
Riichi's friends takes his first unsteady steps towards romance with one of
Ryo's co-workers. Life goes on for everyone in this film, not just the two
leads. Ultimately, you may be prone to questioning whether Riichi's quest to regain
his psychotic edge is really a life affirming message or demonstrates any
personal growth, but if growing up is learning to be comfortable with who you
really are on the inside, maybe his efforts to reclaim his "inner thug" are
just as important as Ryo's efforts to be happy with the life she has and not
the one she had planned on having. Though the film could have used a little
more pep here and there (Miike lingers a bit too much on a few scenes) and you
may quibble that one death was unnecessarily melodramatic (I would submit that
the method of death wasn't important here so much as showing how sudden and
unexpected death could come to any of us, even us young thugs), Young Thugs: Innocent Blood proves to be surprisingly adept at conveying the state of flux all these
characters are in. Though it may take place in Osaka and involve a lifestyle
most of us probably don't live, what the characters go through is entirely
familiar to us and we can identify with the confusion they confront about all
those things that make growing up simultaneously so painful and necessary. And
that kid who pooped his pants was pretty cool, too. Not too grown up, but
still cool.
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