Hard Romanticker

A raw, restless ride through working-class frustration and street brawls, blending kinetic delinquency with a gritty, semiautobiographical edge.

Directed by

Su-yeon Gu

Genres

Drama

Starring

Shota Matsuda, Kento Nagayama, Tokio Emoto

Overview

Writer-director Gu Su-yeon's new film draws on his own semiautobiographical account of growing up as a delinquent zainichi Korean (Japanese-born, but of Korean ancestry) in the seaside city of Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi Prefecture, a working-class hellhole overflowing with sex and fury. Day after day, (fictional) Gu finds fresh foes and makes the local hoodlums want to kick his ass. While working multiple dead-end part-time jobs, he cruises around town on his scooter in search of gangland trouble: leaping across rooftops with irate hordes of punks in hot pursuit, running off with a fetching belle in a sailor suit, rescuing a schoolgirl from being gang-raped at a glue-sniffing orgy…

How it feels

Dark, tense, bleak and earnest. Brisk and needs your attention.

About

Violence, identity, isolation, coming-of-age

Content

Strong violence, sexual content and language. Mild gore.

Note

Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

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Watch the trailer on YouTube (opens in a new tab)