HiGH&LOW THE WORST Sequel (2022)

Le dernier de la classe...

Mmh… J'ai essayé de l'apprécier autant que les autres. Pourtant, pour moi, High&Low The Worst X reste le petit dernier de la classe. Celui qui se contente de reprendre ce qui existait déjà en tentant de le rendre plus sombre, pour finalement pas grand chose…

Comme toujours, la richesse du casting est indéniable. La plupart des acteurs confirment leur place : Kawamura Kazuma, Yoshino Hokuto, Maeda Goki, Shiono Akihisa et bien sûr Shison Jun. Écoutant THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE, j'ai apprécié voir les membres du groupe, même si la plupart restent sous-exploités. Cela dit, le film regorge déjà d'un grand nombre de personnages. En revanche, il est dommage de voir Ryoki Miyama (Amagai Kohei) réduit à un antagoniste sans profondeur ! De plus, bien que j'apprécie Yuta (Suzaki Ryo) en tant qu'idole et danseur, il n'a pas eu l'occasion de montrer son jeu d'acteur.

L'histoire est correcte, mais elle manque de fond (et des motivations plus sérieuses qu'un simple caprice d'enfant pourri gâté). Le combat final possède de bonnes idées : bien filmés et chorégraphiés, cela s'intègre parfaitement aux couloirs du lycée qui rappellent les labyrinthes piégés Malheureusement, le rythme se retrouve brisé à plusieurs reprises pour laisser place à l'arrivée de nouveaux participants. Cependant, chaque nouvelle entrée en scène relance l'action. Enfin, la musique est un chouia meilleure, car plus nerveuse et instrumentale.

En bref, High&Low The Worst X reste un divertissement honnête porté par une scène finale aux idées riches. Cependant, il peine à égaler l'intensité et la fascination des autres films de sa génération, et encore moins ceux de la précédente.

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Just a tad too much

Finally it's here after having waited years, the second part to the High&Low The Worst franchise. When I tell you that I was at the edge of my seat when this was announced! And it didn't..fully disappoint.

As usual the action was amazing, the acting was splendid especially from those having their acting debuts in such a physically demanding movie, and the cinematography never disappoints. The issue is the same though as it is with every movie that has a giant cast: it lacks in the story department.

With so many characters involved it is impossible to flesh out a proper arch or motivation for them which leads to a lot of times of me wondering why they were actually there. I cant help but compare it to Crows Zero (especially since this a Crows Zero universe CROSSover) which also had a big cast . Difference is the cast then was made up mostly by background characters rather than characters meant to have archs/enemies of their own so they could focus on the main conflict. I believe it is best to simply focus on less characters but build on them for a more compelling story.

I think this is where casting so many of your own artists, along with other prominent artists, becomes an issue since of course you want your people to all get to shine as much as possible and broaden their fan circle (sell some of that music along with it) while with actors you can solely put focus on the few characters actually needed.

I was genuinely disappionted with the premise of the movie as well as the motivation for our main "villain". Unless this is your first introduction into the Yankee genre you won't find anything new about the storyarch. I had also hoped to see some more of the cast we already know in the movie (aka Fujio's friends whom we also know from their small drama adaptation) instead of this many new and basically irrelevant characters.

Overall the story was lacking for the fault of cramming as much as possible of the big cast into the story and missing originality, but the action and acting definitely made up for it. As usual Kazuma as Fujio is a stellar character whom I love cheering for and his crew is definitely getting the attention they deserve. I will always love that they didn't go for the typical, edgy protagonist type you see the most in yankee media and instead chose to write Fujio as a sunshine with fists of steel.

If you are a jpop fan you will dedinitely love seeing all these familiar faces taking on these tough roles, which honestly is also a point of enjoyment for itself. Obviously if you are an action fan like me and simply enjoy watching people bashing some heads in that too is really fun. But if you are looking for a compelling and interesting storyarch to go along with all that, this is not the watch for you.

While I have rewatched the first movie several times, I merely find myself skipping through this one to my favorite few fights. I think that perfectly sums up my impression. It felt like many cool action scenes thrown in a pot while the story to connect it all felt like an afterthought.

Lastly of course the music was absolutely perfect, I immediately added some of the soundtrack to my playlist which was to be expected with so many LDH artists involved.

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