Hibi Rock: Puke Afro and the Pop Star comes from the award wining manga series of the same name. How true it is as an adaptation with no prior knowledge is hard to know, but after an enjoyably brutal, bloody opening fight scene that makes you laugh and sets a tone for the film, an event shortly follows that will occur that shall divide audiences watching. There will be those who unreservedly love this film and those who find it unbelievably tedious.
The film sees our sometimes loveable, undeniably terrible aspiring rock stars Hibinuma (Shuhei Nomura), Yoda (Keisuke Okamoto) and Kusakabe (Tomoya Maen) living in Tokyo 5 years after the film’s epic intro and, predictably, failing at their dream of becoming rock stars. They get beaten by their landlord/club owner and play in his club while they wonder how other people, including hit pop sensation Saki Utagawa (Fumi Nikaido), are able to make it famous. Low and behold it’s not long before they run into the famous singer, who turns out to be a bit of a mean drunk with a secret and mean right hook. And while she hates ‘The Rock and Roll Brothers’ (the band’s name), for some strange reason she likes their music and begins to support them during their wacky and frankly insane rise to the top of rock and roll.
Let’s cut right to it. I hated this film. The lead character Hibi is just insanely annoying and while it must’ve been hard for Shuhei Nomura to have kept up his energy for the duration of shooting (props really go to him for that) the absurdity of the character is just too much to stomach. The film is loud, slapsticky and over-the-top quirky for the sake of being quirky. In the beginning it can be funny and I dare say charming at times, but just like a wacky song stuck on repeat, it soon loses its appeal.
The big thing though, the place where Hibi Rock: Puke Afro and the Pop Star truly lost me, is around the 28 minute mark as they tried to make rape funny, when a lead singer from a rival band to The Rock and Roll Brothers attempts to rape the girl who Hibi is attracted to. Apparently in a comical way as she uses lyrics from his songs as puns against it and then there’s a ‘hilarious’ reaction moment when Hibi walks in on them and not once is the attempted rape acknowledged. Then, at the 35 minute mark, I was done completely. Upon seeing the girl who was nearly raped happy and cheering for the band in the next gig, like attempted rape is cool guys, it’s casual, it’s all good, that was the moment the film truly lost me, this film had no way back for me and in a way I get what was trying to be said. It’s just what they’re trying to say is wrong. Even if the film [in some really backwards, messed up world] somehow made the whole rape part funny, the most concerning part of all is there actually is an audience out there who enjoyed it, who found it funny. That’s the bit that I just cannot connect with, that somehow, somewhere, there is an audience for this and that’s the worst part of all.
Maybe the comics do it better? Maybe it doesn’t touch upon certain controversial issues with such a shrug of the shoulders, nonchalant attitude, but in the end I guess all there is to say is that the whole quirky, bad, aspiring rock and roll thing has already been done, and it was done better and it’s called Sott Pilgram vs The World, so just go and watch that instead.
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