Tokyo Revengers 2: Bloody Halloween: Destiny is a brilliant sequel.

 

I'm not the biggest fan of movies that are split into 2 parts. They can feel like they're incomplete in the worst ways with some even ending rather abruptly in terrible places within the narrative. Having said that, I was rather looking forward to the sequels to the 2021 Tokyo Revengers live-action movie. I really enjoyed the first movie and as such, despite my apprehension in regards to the sequels being two parts of one story arc, I had some high hopes. After watching the first of the sequels, I was not disappointed. 

Tokyo Revengers 2: Bloody Halloween: Destiny and its' sequel Decisive Battle both cover the Valhalla arc. Following the events of the first movie, Takemichi Hanagaki has gone back to the present where, despite being a freeter stuck with a job that he has almost zero motivation to do, he has hope in the form of the love of his life, Hinata Tachibana. He had saved Hinata from being killed and the two resume their relationship. Things go awry when Hinata is murdered in front of Takemichi by a very different Tokyo Manjikai. Meeting up with Hinata's brother, Naoto, Takemichi vows to go back in time and save her life once again. After investigating how the Tokyo Manjikai came to be a criminal organisation, it is revealed by Draken that Kisaki Tetta is responsible. 

The narrative gets a bit more of a chance to breath in this sequel. At the very beginning, there's a neat little summary that takes us through the events that occurred in the first movie in a nice, condensed manner. There are some fight scenes, but fewer than the previous movie with much more dialogue and flashbacks. We get to see some more of the history of the Tokyo Manjikai, including the founding members first gaining their uniforms and the bond they shared. Draken gets some cool moments, mostly during the present with him being on death row thanks to Kisaki colluding with the police. Mikey gets moments in both the past and present, such as how he came to get his beloved Hawk bike. We also are introduced to a few new characters that weren't in the first movie. Founding members of the Tokyo Manjikai, Baji and Kazutora each have some neat moments, including a very emotional flashback that shows how Kazutora ended up in juvie and as a result was absent for the events of the prior movie. Kazutora also gives the sound design team some great work as his appearance comes with the chiming of the bell that he wears on his ear. 

I greatly enjoyed the relationship between Takemichi and Hinata. They were adorably awkward in their scenes together, especially in the present. In the past, it was Takemichi who was the awkward one, but their present relationship is just tremendously awkward to the point that as an awkward person myself, I could relate and laughed at them. I also loved Naoto's insistence to get them out and trying to get them talking anywhere, but his place. The camera shot that had Hinata and Takemichi in the foreground and Naoto in the background was brilliant. It is also through their scenes together in which we find that Takemichi's actions in the past have altered events in their life once again, without Takemichi's knowledge due to coming back to the present following his prior success in the past.

The cinematography was once again tremendous. Hanabusa Tsutomu and Tomo Ezaki work superbly well together and it showed once again with the wide variety of shot types, camera angles and techniques used throughout the movie. There's some really cool looking close ups and reaction shots, some solid wide angles and even some great mid range shots. There's also a fantastic usage of colour grading with various scenes having a different look and feel, between the past and the present. A stand out shot of the movie for me was a tracking shot that followed Hinata and Takemichi as they drove as it looked like the camera was a car following theirs from behind.

It's hard to really judge what little fight scenes were in the movie due to most of them being rather short and already in progress when we do see them. They're shot really well with the action clear to follow and in frame. A criticism I often have of multi-man fight scenes is the fact that they usually end up with some people standing about waiting for their cue to action. In the action sequence near the opening of the movie that serves as our introduction to the Valhalla gang, there's a little bit of this. It could be argued that the gang are toying with the Toman however, which could therefore justify the members of Valhalla standing around and not ganging up on the remaining Toman. 

Takumi Kitamura once again nailed the role of Takemichi Hanagaki. He managed to convincingly be the soft, kind-hearted boyfriend to Hinata Tachibana and also the resolute, strong-willed tough guy that'll fight the world to save her and make things right with Mikey and the others. Mio Imada was once again stunningly beautiful and had some rather impactful moments as Hinata Tachibana.

Once again, Yuki Yamada was effortlessly cool and badass in the role of Draken. He convincingly portrayed several varied emotional states and at different times of the character's life from the past to the present. He didn't have much fighting to do at all, but he excelled when he did. Seeing him bald as a death row prisoner was a cool spectacle and in these scenes, he delivers some of the most memorable dialogue in the movie as he gives Takemichi much needed information about the events which Takemichi is trying to stop. I thought that he actually looked pretty cool bald too. 

Ryo Yoshizawa has swiftly become one of my favourite actors to watch. He always seems to pop up in dramas and movies that I'm interested in and delivers great performances every time. As Mikey, he portrays the conflict hidden within the strong, powerful leader and good friend tremendously well. 

As far as the newcomers go, Kento Nagayama stood out as Keisuke Baji. He had such a powerful aura and screen presence that he looked like a believable badass. His physicality was splendid and he also managed to have some very emotional scenes, particularly in the flashbacks. 

Nijiro Murakami was perfectly fine as Kazutora Hanemiya. He had a really cool design that worked with the bell chimes. He did however, feel like the least threatening physically of the cast. That is something that cannot be helped however. I also thought that his reason for going against Mikey and Toman was rather flimsy at best. His actions were unsavoury to begin with and ended in tragedy, but him shifting the blame onto Mikey was irrational and I think that that is the whole point. His irrational hatred of Mikey is due to him losing his sanity to an extent.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the second movie in the Tokyo Revengers franchise. The narrative was expertly delivered and there were plenty of engaging, emotional moments and scenes. The cast were sublime with everyone fulfilling their roles extremely well. Kiyomasa, the main antagonist of the first movie also has a pretty cool appearance and it serves a purpose as he provides some information about his attempted stabbing of Draken to Takemichi. I would recommend the movie to fans of action movies with a hint of sci-fi/fantasy due to the time travelling elements and also to fans of the mange due to it being a pretty solid adaptation.