User Reviews

At this point I've seen several of Sion Sono's films and greatly enjoyed them, but there's no questioning that in one way or another his features bear various peculiarities that surely limit their audience. At least of those titles of his I've seen - and honestly, among any of the many, many movies I've watched - 'Hazard' immediately comes across as being an especially acquired taste. For all the skill Sono has demonstrated otherwise as both writer and director, here the camerawork is largely defined by very loose, unfocused shakiness. It's entirely on purpose, of course, with the frenetic style echoing the dangerous whirlwind misadventures that protagonist Shin has in New York, and arguably intended to convey a sense of realism. But especially in this instance it definitely makes the movie hard to engage with.

That's all the more unfortunate because the story Sono wanted to tell is overflowing with problems already. Above all is this: most of the characters we meet - prominent supporting figures Lee and Takeda most distinctly - adopt mannerisms in their speech and comportment that are pointedly intended as mimicry of inner city gangs and "hoodlums" (circa 1991). This aspect of 'Hazard' is so prevalent as to be one of the feature's most distinguishing traits, but it's difficult to discern whether this affect is sardonic mockery of such overblown, racist tropes, or wholly ignorant adoption of them. It also feels important to note that this sharp indelicacy mirrors instances in the filmmaker's other movies that toe a very fine line teetering on the edge of abject offensiveness. Whatever the case may be, the resulting performances - guided by Sono's hand, in roles he penned - are glaringly annoying on the face of it for the obnoxious pretense, and again for the reflection one way or another of racist stereotypes.

The crudeness is so overbearing that 100 minutes feels impossibly longer than it actually is. I was absolutely aghast to occasionally glance at the digital timer and see that again and again, not even one hour of the runtime had passed.

If one can overlook the dire inelegance on hand - an excruciating obstacle, and a very big "if" - then the scene writing and narrative actually does have a lot going for it. 'Hazard' is relatable in its telling of a disaffected young man, disenchanted with the "sleepy but restless" life he leads in familiar surroundings, who seeks excitement. By a sequence of harsh circumstances, he finds himself falling in with maladjusted, coarse individuals who induct him into the most dubious and criminal of all possible invigoration. In the process we're treated to some vivid, noteworthy moments of jarring blunder and poor decisions, a fair amount of violence - even some mild humor and cleverness, and acutely potent shock at the climax. The core concept of the tale at hand is really quite good, and full of potential. However, the characters and dialogue as they present, Sono's untidy direction, and the dominant idiosyncrasies all combine into a counterbalancing quagmire that substantially dampens what 'Hazard' could have been.

No matter how much one admires Sono and appreciates his body of work, I think it's all but undeniable that the final cut we get of this journey is a very rough ride. On the balance I like it more than I don't, and I want to hold it in still higher regard. There's a lot of value here, hidden behind the graceless tawdriness. Yet given that profound, brazen garishness, I also wonder if I'm not being far too generous. This much is certain: 'Hazard' has very limited appeal for all but the most select of audiences. If you're willing and able to stick with it, and abide the crassness and lack of refinement that's tantamount to vulgarity, then there's no small amount of adept storytelling to admire. But I won't for one moment begrudge anyone who gives this a try and walks away dissatisfied or worse.

I'm not sure who I would really recommend this to - not because it's outright bad, but because it strikes me as a movie that will find favor only on a strictly case by case basis. For my part, I'm glad I watched 'Hazard,' but I still just really don't know exactly how I feel about it. Viewer discretion is advised.

There's a scene in Sion Sono's magnum opus Love Exposure, in which the emotionally abused and alienated protagonist, Yu, feeling fed up, screams and runs out into the night rain, still wearing his school uniform. He comes across some shady-looking teenagers trying to shake some free food out of a vending machine, and without hesitating, runs up and joins in their attack of the snack dispenser. They stop, then he stops, and they all look at each other for a second, and then resume, pushing over the vending machine, at which point a security guard calls out and they all run away together... And just like that these guys become Yu's new amazing friends who turn his whole life around.

It was at this moment that I fell in love with Love Exposure - I felt connected to Yu, to his feeling of suffocation in his home life, and then to see him suddenly drop his inhibitions, and change his life, in an instant, in the most ridiculous and audacious way imaginable... It got me excited, motivated; it made me feel pumped up. Well, if Love Exposure is, rightly, seen as the summation of every movie Sono had made up until Love Exposure, Hazard is the film in Sono's filmography that metamorphosed into that scene; in a way it's a complete film about Yu and his friends - that whole aspect of Love Exposure.

Hazard is a film about a college student, Shin, who feels suffocated by his dull life, trapped by his surroundings. He is sick to death of "sleepy but restless" Japan, and wants to go somewhere that's alive; when he happens to read about high crime rates in New York City, he is actually attracted by this idea of danger (of "Hazard"), and decides to leave everything behind and go. Once in New York, he sort of wanders aimlessly for a while, failing to fit in and managing only to get himself mugged, until one day he meets a couple charismatic Japanese guys his age in a convenience store. A minute later, these guys pull out some guns, rob the convenience store (of a few snacks only), and the three run away together. Shin is invited to live with these new best friends of his, and together, they make New York their "paradise".

I've often felt that Sono's films are not "realistic", but hyper-real; the scenarios are exaggerated and he works on an emotionally elevated level, but underlying that exaggeration is something deeply relatable, and through that exaggeration he conveys this in a much stronger way. So, taking this convenience store scene for example, well, it's the same as that scene in Love Exposure: seeing this character, who I relate to, have his life turned around in the most insane way... It's exciting; it pumps me up, and even inspires me to be more bold in my own life.

I don't take it literally - I'm not about to hold up a convenience store - but I never got the sense that the violence in Hazard was ever meant to be taken literally. In real life, I've never even seen a gun up close; there's nothing particularly relatable to me about violence or crime, yet these are completely ubiquitous, practically obligatory elements of entertaining cinema. I see the guns and violence in Hazard then as sort of a way of Sono subverting the traditional form of an urban crime film, to create a movie that has the same entertainment value, but beneath the surface is really a film about friendship, and a marginalized youth finding his place in the world.

The last time I watched Hazard now, was almost a year and a half ago. It is the one movie I took the time to watch while I was in Tokyo. My trip to Tokyo was in part inspired by Hazard, actually. Yes, Shin wanted to get away from "sleepy but restless" Japan, but I don't think the film is a commentary on any specific place or nationality - and I think the ending reinforces this - it's a universal film about a youth, desiring to experience life someplace else, and taking back out of this experience a revitalized outlook on life. For me, having never left the country, I was completely fed up with Canada, a country that's not "restless", but rather, just always asleep, and Tokyo was a place that had the same alluring sense of otherness to it, that maybe New York had for Shin.

Like Shin, I went alone. I wasn't interested in tourism - I wanted to know what it was like to actually live in Tokyo. I stayed for a month. I went out every day and every evening, to explore different parts of the city. Like Shin, I wandered aimlessly. Sometimes I would get lost and it would take me hours to find my way back to the nearest train station. I took language classes while I was there, and met some people through that, but mostly I remained on my own. I spent countless nights just hanging out around fairs and convenience stores, or around the smokers at Hachiko Square in Shibuya, watching the lights and the people. I felt lonely and discouraged one night and that's when I decided to watch Hazard. Feeling inspired again by the movie, I ran back out to the train station to continue exploring the city (though it's interesting how that "pumped up" feeling I leave a Sono film with can be hard to hold onto while waiting for a train with a handful of bored-looking people). When I returned that night, I met a Taiwanese guy staying in the same guesthouse as me, who recognized me from the language school, and (even though our only mutual language was extremely broken Japanese) I finally made a substantial friendship there.

A couple weeks after coming home from Japan, I returned to college, and, finally reunited with my old friends (after an 8-month co-op/break), we drank and ran through the snowy night streets, as the scene from Hazard of Shin, running through the street with Lee and Takeda flashed in my head. Well, that's what Hazard means to me. I absolutely love those characters. Lee is amazing - his total lack of inhibitions and sheer ecstasy of existence (Jai West's performance is unbelievable), the way he takes Shin under his arms... And Shin... Never have I felt more connected to a film character than him, the "boy who only wanted to fly". Sion Sono has said he would like to see his movies "have the power to change people's lives for the better". Well, I certainly think that power is in Hazard, for me, as it continues to inspire me to be a little less bashful around people, and to strive towards finding my own "paradise", like they make for each other in the film.

Shion Sono became a well-known entity in the United States with his Asianphobic film called Suicide Circle. Actually, for any Japanese director to have his name heard in the states, all one has to do is to cook up some disturbing stereotypes of Asian customs, and critics of lewd tastes will go for it. The problem with this is that, after a strong gust of oriental wind, there is little to no publicity in its aftermath. Take Takeshii Miike, people were cutting themselves up like Kakihara after Ichi the Killer hit, and then there was Gozu, Visitor Q, and many other deranged works. However, after a while, after we seem to "get it", we stop being interested. Miike is still making many films now, although he was gone away from shock value, and more into the realms of high-energy gangster-art films, which always seems to be ignored by people here for some odd reason.

This is what bothers me about the marketing for Asian cinema and for films like "Hazard", which in my opinion, is probably the coolest, slickest, realist Shion Sono film ever. No, "Suicide Circle" and "Strange Circus" will not hold a candle to this. "Hazard" is an entirely experimental and documentary film of Japan and America. Filmed in New York City, brimming with ridiculous amount of wit, testosterone and high energy, it's definitely miles away from the submissive screaming black-haired girls crawling out of kitchen toilets.

This film, I have to say, is Shion Sono's heart and grit coming out on screen. You get a man who isn't afraid of criticizing Japan, his own country, as he flees his land for new opportunities in America. Jo Odagiri, one of the best actors out there, takes up the role of Shin, an introverted extrovert, who is just fed up with Japan's Nyquil-induced society, feeling more and more like a robot each day, he could not handle the monotony. Instead, he ditches everything he knows, including his girlfriend, and runs to New York in search of "Hazard", as he puts it. Whatever "Hazard" is isn't told to us, only implied. It might be a new direction, a new place, a new way of living. When Shin and his gangster friends walks into a jazz club and performs a stick-up with a rifle, not only was it stark with a sense of brute class, but it holds a message within the bullets in the barrel. This is "Hazard", we live life by the gun, and die by the gun. It has a style that removes stereotypes, and only adds a statement, saying that Japan can do it as well as anyone. We're not afraid to wear the cowboy boots, the leather jackets, and we can do it better than you.

Jai West and Jo Odagiri proves that they are no joke in the film business, and their acting, and screen presence is a marvel to behold. It would only be a shame if you missed out.

If this movie is supposed to be an accurate depiction of the multicultural cesspit that is New York, the famous and often romanticized "melting pot", filled with degenerates and scum of all shapes and colors (but all of them acting "black") - it's a total success. But that doesn't make it watchable or entertaining. It's garbage. 90 minutes of visual chaos with too much shaky camera and not a single likeable character.