One of the best Japanese movies to date. Sion Sono beats Quentin Tarantino at his own game and is creative and original besides. The film gets a little over the top and could possibly be trimmed down a little. However it succeeds and is more engaging than 97% of all other films released in the last year, and with a four hour running time besides.

I related to some of the religious fanaticism I experienced in my youth. However, despite the deceivers and the people led astray, I still believe there are truly sincere people that do the Lord’s work. I just think Sono showcased how sometimes it can all go so wrong.

The translation of the film was good and solid for the most part. However, during the course of the film, there were some typos. Then for 1 Corinthians 13, there was the infant/child mistranslation. Speaking of Tarantino, the same thing happened in his Inglourious Basterds. Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent) tells a man he is behaving like a “child” (“enfant” in French), but the translation pops up as “infant”. So when we heard the passage, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child…” it was translated as “When I was a infant, I spoke as an infant, I understood as an infant…”

While the above has no bearing on Sion Sono’s film (he obviously had no hand in the translation), it did make me wonder if the French and Japanese word for child sounded like “infant” to Americans or to English speakers.

Other than that, the film has everything: deception, vying for a father’s affection, fights (all kinds of fights), the quest for love and lust, and the jerk friends who will talk you into anything.

Overall, it’s 4/5. I highly recommend seeing it if you get a chance. I saw it with © <’,))( on the big screen and to say the crowd was pumped is a total understatement!!