Tamao Serizawa, for instance, excellently played by Takayuki Yamada, has much less to do in this film compared to the first. It’s a shame that in expanding the scope of the Crows universe by introducing the other school, some of the characters from the first instalment end up being squeezed to the edges. Even if the film feels a lot darker, there are still a lot of laugh out loud moments that are at times even funnier than Crows Zero. The fighting builds at a more gradual pace and there’s much more time at the beginning of film to spend on delving a bit deeper into the characters and their relationships. Tonally, Crows Zero II feels much more serious than its predecessor. Even if the fighting itself has taken on a slightly more realistic form the usual lone warrior against a horde of bad guys style clichés still rear their heads, but as in the earlier film it’s all in good fun. There’s still a cartoonish unreality to the situation where no-one really gets hurt, but this time around things have taken a leap in the other direction with characters becoming more and more bloodstained until their white T-shirts have taken on a distinctly reddish hue. The fight scenes aren’t quite as interesting as they were in the first film, but Miike still manages to keep the excitement levels high even if the constant brawling starts to get a little repetitive. There are some new faces getting pummelled and some new fists doing the pummelling but generally speaking there’s still a whole lot of pummelling going on. Yes, Crows Zero II is largely more of the same. Can Genji, Serizawa and the others put their differences behind them long enough to crush Hosen before they finally graduate high school? It’s not just leadership of Suzuran that’s at stake now, it’s Suzuran itself. So when some of them run into Genji, spoiling for a fight, this truce isn’t exactly their top priority. Ever since the terrible incident there’s been a truce between the two schools, Hosen and Suzuran, but the guys at Hosen are starting to get hungry for revenge. The boy responsible was a student at Suzuran and is about to be released from Juvenile detention. Moving the camera sideways a little, at another school not dissimilar to Suzuran, the students are still mourning their leader killed two years ago in a rumble. It’s only a matter of time before someone stirs things up again. The uneasy alliance between those at the top of Suzuran’s ladder seems to be holding but the younger guys are chomping at the bit for some action and starting to question their leader's orders to keep the peace.
Genji has conquered Suzuran but is still dissatisfied with his repeated failure to defeat Rindaman and prove himself totally. As sequels go, Crows Zero II picks up pretty much where Crows Zero left off.
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