Crows Zero is centred around the Suzuran High School and it’s internal power struggle wherein the crown is determined by teenage hand-to-hand scuffles. Genji is one such “crow,” as the notorious students of Suzuran are called. He is the son of a yakuza and it is his ambition to be at the top of Suzuran’s hierarchy. On his very first day he challenges Serizawa, the crow who is almost at the very top of Suzuran.

I went into the movie knowing that it would be chock full with action scenes and it was. The fighting scenes were quite exaggerated with characters dramatically spewing blood, spitting teeth and clashing against each other.

Such action movies have never been my thing but I wanted to try the movie which has spawned two sequels and a manga. Crows Zero had a lot of space for improvement. I for one do not want to spend 2 hours of my time watching hoardes of teenage boys fighting against each other with a mindless ambition. There was too much testosterone and too much blood and it wouldn’t be half so bad if there was a meaning to everything.

Loyalty and leadership were quite a central to the storyline but as the movie dragged on and stretched a storyline that would be more appropriate for a one hour movie into double of that, the message was lost and I was honestly just so bored.

There is a noticeable lack of female characters here and the few that you may spot are to serve as plot devices. The “damsel-in-distress softens badboy” trope was not just annoying but if felt out of place. The sub-textual love triangle between Tokio, Serizawa and Genji was a lot more entertaining to watch. ;)

Overall a watchable movie but I can’t rate it higher than a 5.5 nor am I motivated to watch the sequels.