Why Don't You Play In Hell?'s director Sion Sono is also no stranger to lengthy movies, with his earlier film Love, Exposure also coming in at over four hours. His latest film is a more modest effort at just over two hours long, and he manages to cram it with arresting images and a thoroughly engaging plot from start to finish. A young aspiring Japanese filmmaker finds himself caught up in the seedy underworld of organised crime where he gets on board producing and directing a movie for a Yakuza boss. Sono's passion for genre cinema is evident from the beginning - Why Don't You Play In Hell? is as much a love story to the movies as it is a wild, erratic and dynamic movie in its own right. Comparisons with Quentin Tarantino are entirely apt, not least with Sono's playful use of Bruce Lee's yellow jumpsuit and a climactic closing battle which is as bloody - if not as well choregraphed - as that seen in Kill Bill. Movies don't often come as gleefully fun and silly as this.
