Critic Reviews

Miike’s seemingly offhand inventiveness is evident in almost every shot and cut.

To watch it is to feel Miike’s industriousness and partake of his pleasure: The cinema is his first love and likely also his last.

The pacing is breakneck but the economy with which Miike establishes his various narrative threads and characters is astonishing.

Frequently sublime ... a piece of work so feral and full of life that you’d never guess it was (at least) the 90th feature its director has made in the last 30 years.

First Love ranks among Miike’s most purely entertaining movies (out of more than 100 now!), gradually building steam until it reaches a sustained pitch of cheerful insanity.

While the film is kinetic, colorful, and frantically paced, it’s also not quite as outrageous as Miike’s gonzo ‘90s yakuza movies.

An exhilarating cocktail of bloodbath violence and tar-black humour that will be catnip to Midnight Madness programmers and Miike devotees.

First Love may be a fluffier, more eager-to-please bauble than Miike’s more challengingly outré titles, but like the cutesy mechanical toy puppy that turns up yapping in the middle of the film, it is wired to explode, and it is a blast.

Supremely entertaining and hilarious, First Love will melt your brains, punch you in the gut and leave your hearts a-flutter.

Sweetening up a smidgen without chilling out, this is Miike having fun, bombarding us with squirm-inducing violence while making us laugh and — ever so slightly — tugging on the heartstrings.