Vintage Violence TIFF Review: Kotlyarenko's Yakuza Rom-Com — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Vintage Violence, written and directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko, premiered at TIFF in the Midnight Madness section, marking his follow-up to 2020's social media horror film Spree.
- Cole Sprouse stars as Carter, an urban explorer who discovers rare denim in a Colorado mineshaft, with Kiko Mizuhara as Izumi, the woman who lures him to Tokyo to offload the haul.
- The plot pulls the pair into a yakuza chase through Tokyo's denim market, with the review noting the film also sheds light on Japan's growing sex tourism industry, which it says attracts "unsavory visitors from the US."
- Nijirô Murakami plays Izumi's scheming boyfriend Hiro, Hio Miyazawa is denim-obsessed yakuza boss Edoga, and Pierre Taki is disgraced gangster Ko, seeking revenge years after losing a finger as punishment.
- Kotlyarenko uses connectivity motifs — an urbex livestream watched from Tokyo and an abandoned AirPod's skipping music powering a chase scene — to frame digital intimacy as the film's engine.
- The film runs 1 hour 45 minutes, with WME attached as US sales agent.
- The review frames the movie as a tonal pivot for Kotlyarenko: an "optimistic rom-com with an exciting action twist" that retains Japanese-style blood spray and a graphically detailed makeout scene.
Why it matters: TIFF slotted the film in Midnight Madness — the festival's genre-skewed sidebar — signaling programmer confidence that Kotlyarenko's tonal mashup (urbex romance plus yakuza violence plus US-Japan tourism critique) can play beyond arthouse rooms, with WME's sales attachment pointing to imminent distributor shopping.
Ask SkimNews
