If you've ever watched an Ishii film before and I'm guessing you have because one does not simply stumble upon Tokyo Blood, you'll know the obsession the director has with landscape. Frames and frames of beautiful but kinetic images often coming together are a key element of his work. This short anthology film that combines four stories of seemingly unrelated people showcase Ishii's love of image but also his love and fear of Tokyo, it's sprawling streets and wonderful vistas, but also it's relationship to it's people, seen in the second story, perhaps the most beautiful one. Narratively, excluding the heart of stone segment that bases itself upon a futurist "what if" scenario of the necessity of a return to nature, the film portrays the alienation and claustrophobia of the city through involuntary individualism in the first segment and the societal need to break down and escape in the third. This is a beautiful film, but beyond surface levels does not delve into themes that his later works such as "Angel Dust" or his previous works such as "Electric Dragon 80,000v" did.
Review of Tokyo Blood
