Tokyo Revengers

Takemichi, twenty-six, is at the lowest point of his life. He learns from the news that his former girlfriend has died in a gang fight. The same day he is pushed onto the metro tracks and lands twelve years earlier, in his school years. To change the past he has to join the gang of that period. Tsutomu Hanabusa directed, from Ken Wakui's comic. Takumi Kitamura plays Takemichi, Ryo Yoshizawa plays the gang leader Mikey. It was among the highest-earning domestic films in Japan that year and sequels followed. Its idea is joining time travel to the gang story: the hero does not win fights in the past, he only knows who dies when. The fights stay faithful to the comic; exaggerated, in packs and bloody. Takemichi is an unusual protagonist: constantly afraid, constantly beaten, with persistence as his only strength. Who it is for: viewers who like Japanese comic adaptations and gang films. Who it is not for: readers of the source; the film compresses a very large story into two hours.