Streets of Fire

Foul-mouthed octogenarian rappin’ n’ scratching grandmothers. Abrasive, gold-laminated 3D holographic shamans. A scene -tealing human-beatbox waitress, buxom yakuza mistresses, sex-crazed adolescents, breakdancing ninja dervishes, and tank-wielding Shibuya henchmen. All these ingredients and more are present in the latest dish of neon-lit lunacy from Japanese provocateur Sion Sono, a filmmaker with a long and distinguished relationship with the London Film Festival following exposure for his earlier cult cuts Cold Fish, Exte: Hair Extensions, and Why Don’t You Play in Hell?. His latest film, Tokyo Tribe, is another one for the midnight movie crowd: a delirious contemporary musical based on the popular manga by Santa Inoue, it’s a phantasmagorical pop art pastiche of the American rhythms of Streets of Fire, West Side Story, and The Warriors.

The last few weeks have seen a dramatic crescendo on Arrow, with Slade’s plan to destroy Oliver’s entire universe coming to light (or reveling in newfound darkness, however you’d like to put it). With it has come a host of changes to Arrow’s world: the death of Moira, Laurel learning the Arrow’s identity, and Thea’s disenchantment with her family and love life, major shifts in world dynamics that needed to occur to both push its characters into new stages of development, but also to neatly arrange the dominoes of the season’s endgame.