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HARD ROMANTICKER

By Suyeon GU

TOEI COMPANY, LTD. - as SALES All rights, World

Action/Adventure - Completed 2011

Japan's Answer to a Clockwork Orange!
A Shocking Film with International Appeal, Featuring Some of Japan's Most Brilliant Actors!
This is a Hard Romanticker!

- Year of production
- 2011
- Genres
- Action/Adventure
- Countries
- JAPAN
- Languages
- JAPANESE
- Budget
- 0 - 0.3 M$
- Duration
- 110 mn
- Director(s)
- Suyeon GU
- Writer(s)
- Mitsunori GU
- Cast
- Shota MATSUDA, Kento NAGAYAMA, Shidou NAKAMURA, Atsuro WATABE, Yoko MAKI, Sei ASHINA, Tokio EMOTO
- Producer(s)
- Kimio KATAOKA
- Synopsis
- Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture – a port town surrounded by ocean on the tip of Honshu island. Gu is born in Japan of Korean ancestry and living life as a high school dropout working part time jobs. Gu constantly gets caught up in trouble on the streets of Shimonoseki – he's entrusted with the key to a secret stash by childhood acquaintance Shoji, a member of the Gono yakuza gang, and also crosses paths with local detective Fujita. One day, Gu hears from his friend Kaneko that his ex-high school juniors Tatsu and Masaru led a raid on the house of “gook high school” rival Kim Chong-gin. However, Kim wasn't home and they ended up beating his grandmother to death and torching the house. Masaru escapes but Tatsu is hauled in by the police. Gu recalls an offhand remark he once made to Tatsu – “If you wanna hurt someone, hurt their family or girlfriend.” Gu wanders the streets looking for the truth behind the attack but wherever he goes he ends up ensnarled in violence. A young upstart that Gu beats up happens to be the younger brother of former Korean high school boxer Park Yong-oh. Gu carelessly blurts out Kaneko's name which leads the Korean high school to take revenge on Kaneko and turns Gu's friend into an enemy. Gu visits another friend, Takashi, and in a room that reeks of paint thinner he finds ex-Korean high school students holding a box cutter to the mouth of a high school girl as they rape her. Gu can't bring himself to walk away from the scene and impulsively attacks them. Gu now has enemies all over Shimonoseki.
  By some circumstance, Gu crosses the Kanmonkyo Bridge over to Kokura in Fukuoka Prefecture and finds a place to stay downtown. Gu strikes up a friendship with an enigmatic man named Takagi and gets a job running a small live music venue. Takagi introduces him to club hostess Natsuko, whose house he crashes at. In his off hours Gu re-establishes contact with his old girlfriend in Shimonoseki. He finally seems to be living the life of a regular young man. But his new environment also has a rotten underbelly. Takagi is in fact a high ranking member of the Ito yakuza gang, who are bitter rivals of the Gono syndicate. Takagi's involved in selling drugs and forcing Natsuko into prostitution. Meanwhile, Gu's grandmother shows up to take Gu back to Shimonoseki and informs him of Shoji's death. Back in Shimonoseki, Kaneko and the Korean high school gangs run wild with retribution in their search for Gu. Upholding his promise to Shoji, Gu ultimately decides to return home and give what was entrusted to him to the wife of the Gono gang's leader.
  “When I do something, I do it all the way!”
  What will tomorrow bring for Gu?