You’d probably have to look a long time before finding someone who speaks really highly of their high school. But there are crummy high schools, and then there’s Cromartie High. It’s a real slap in the face to the well-behaved, straight-A student Takashi Kamiyama when he finds himself, through a cruel twist of fate, enrolled at Cromartie. At the next desk over is a surly brute who eats the contents of Takashi’s pencil case. Partly to freak Takashi out, of course—but mostly because pencils are his favourite snack! But that menace is among the more normal of Takashi’s classmates, if the word "normal" even applies at Cromartie. Sneering thugs with mohawks are everywhere, but they’re nothing compared to the likes of Mechazawa, an overgrown coffee tin of a robot who’s as rude and obnoxious and any flesh and blood student. Then there’s Gorilla—they don’t call him that because he’s big, dumb and smells bad, though he is and does. No, he actually is a gorilla. That’s Cromartie High School for you—like a zoo crossed with a nuthouse, minus the cleanliness and sanity!

The live-action adaptation of the riotous, ridiculous and very popular manga of the same name by Eiji Nonaka, Cromartie High School shares the rough, absurdist teen spirit of Battlefield Baseball, director Yudai Yamaguchi’s earlier effort. In fact, it’s starting to look like Yamaguchi will singlehandedly establish a genre that can only be called Japanese teenage punk-rock slapstick. Imagine a cross between Archie comics and Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus and you just might have a handle on this crazy rock ’n’ roll goof-off. In fact, not only did Yamaguchi co-write Versus, and handle second-unit direction, but Versus star Tak Sakaguchi (who was also in Battlefield Baseball) has a notable role. The report cards are in, class, and Cromartie High School gets great grades for good, not-quite-that-clean fun!

—Rupert Bottenberg

http://www.kurokou.com/

Director: Yudai Yamaguchi
Screenplay: Shoichiro Matsumoto
Cast: Takamasa Suga, Mitsukii Koga, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Itsuji Itao, Tak Sakaguchi
Producers: Shin Torisawa, Chikako Nakabayashi
Distributor: Media Suits

Gerbil, The Canada 2005 | 6 min English language