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First Love

Directed by: Takashi Miike | 2019 | 1h 48m | Unrated | In Japanese w/ English Subtitles

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O Cinema South Beach

1130 Washington Ave, Miami Beach (786) 471-3269

Additional information

• Adults – $11.00
• Older Adults (62+ years old w/ valid ID) – $9.50
• Students & Teachers (w/ valid ID) – $9.50
• Children (12 years old & under) – $9.50
• Military (w/ valid ID) – $9.50
• Miami Beach Film Society Members – $9.00
• O Cinema Members – $7.50
(All tickets are available online and at the box office. Prices for special events and select screenings may vary. Please note ticket prices before you complete your purchase. All prices are subject to change without notice.)

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One night in Tokyo, a self-confident young boxer and a prostitute get caught up in a drug-smuggling plot involving organized crime, corrupt cops and a female assassin.

Never mind a New York minute: it’s in a Shinjuku second that one risks losing one’s head in FIRST LOVE, and when 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 crosshairs 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 audiences 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, 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.

“The Tarantino-style rollercoaster ride is as effortlessly enjoyable as ever, accentuating the director’s lighter comic leanings over his bloodthirsty side.”
– HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

” ‘First Love’ is mostly remarkable for renewing once again the apparently infinitely renewable resource that is Miike’s filmmaking energy.”
– VARIETY

“First Love might start as a hard-boiled piece of pulp fiction, but it isn’t long before it softens into a violent, hilarious, and violently hilarious madcap comedy…”
– INDIEWIRE