A brief admonition: Takashi Miike's Young Thugs: Innocent Blood is not a film for the passive cinematic consumer. I know. I tried watching around one in the morning a week or so ago and the experience proved perplexing and rather boring. Knowing in my heart of hearts that I was to blame for this, however, I stopped the disc and waited until a few days later, watching the movie during the afternoon, when I was much more cogent. What I found was an absolute delight. Takashi Miike's Young Thugs: Innocent Blood is a stunning yet surprisingly tender film that is just as much about the complexities, beauties and hardships of love and friendship as it is about violent Japanese hooligans.

As the film opens, we meet four high school friends who are performing a 'farewell prank' of sorts. On top of their school, two boys remove a flower from its pot and wait, holding it over the building's edge; meanwhile, down below, the pretty Ryoko leads her teacher to a secluded corner of the school's courtyard. Any guesses as to the connection between the teacher and the flower dangling above him?

As the opening credits run, we see all of the monkeyshines these four get into following their graduation from the high school. The three boys get involved in all sorts of rackets, from setting up street-corner scams to hiring themselves out as thugs, while Ryoko finds a job working at a local beauty salon, which, while seemingly simple, still has its share of difficulties.

As things move past these opening minutes, however, an interesting shift in tone takes place. Violence fades away and the film becomes more of a character study, examining the romantic posturing between the boys and their girls as well as the relations of all of the group's members. As time moves on, they all find themselves slowly drifting apart, changing and moving in different directions.

It's on this level that the film really becomes interesting, as, I'd wager, pretty much everyone can relate to the uncertain feelings that accompany major life-changes. To go into much more detail about the specifics of the plot would be useless, as it would require a cataloguing of all sorts of minutia that would simply be too detailed to undertake here. Just rest assured, there's a lot going on in Innocent Blood (more than one could possibly hope to grasp when sleep-deprived in the wee hours of Sunday morning), and it is, in the end, a surprisingly touching and carefully observed film that, while still including many instances of 'typically' -Miike cringe-inducing violence (I don't know if I've ever seen so many baseball bat beatings in one movie...), is also one of Miike's warmest efforts.

Bringing this fine film to US audiences are the good folks at Artsmagic Entertainment, who have provided us with a nice DVD release that does an excellent job of showcasing this feature. Transfer-wise, everything is well-done, with the picture, presented in an anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer, looking clean and clear and only showing a few flecks and scratches.

As for extras, we receive some biographies and filmographies, the film's original Japanese artwork (with optional translation), the film's original trailer, and a couple of featurettes.

Featurette One is a nine-minute piece on the history and culture of Osaka, the town where the film takes place. It's an interesting and informative short, comprised of an Osaka native explaining the town's history while various illustrations and footnotes appear elsewhere on the screen. Occasionally, all these elements together can end up causing a bit of sensory overload, but, on the whole, the feature proves informative and a worthwhile view.

Finally, we get Artsmagic's requisite interview with Mr. Miike himself, in which the director discusses, among other things, the making of this film and his love of Osaka, its setting and the town of his birth. Hearing Miike reminisce about his youth is quite fun, and it's an interesting coincidence that his trademark polarized sunglasses are a set that's a little less polarized than usual, seeming to hint that, in all ways, this interview is giving us a more intimate portrait of Miike than we may be accustomed to.

While extras here may be a little more scant than usual (I definitely could have done for one of those Tom Mes commentaries), Artsmagic's release of Young Thugs: Innocent Blood is still a solid package. It presents US audiences with a good film that's obviously quite personal to its director and, in its supplements and transfer, treats the movie with appropriate reverence. Fans of Mr. Miike and of good movies in general are urged to check it out.

UK site: http://www.artsmagic.co.uk/youngthugsinnocentblood

US site: http://www.artsmagicdvd.com/youngthugsinnocentblood