10. The First Slam Dunk, dir. Takehiko Inoue
Yes, three Japanese movies in three days. Japan had a really good 2023. We got nine movies to go after this, and who is to say Japan is done winning?
I did not know anything about the Slam Dunk manga from the 1990s by Takehiko Inoue. (Hm, that name sounds familiar!) But even with complete ignorance, a very buzzed-about anime production is rarely a bad decision. I've heard that sports anime is a great genre of shonen. So I went into a theater blind one Saturday mid-afternoon, knowing only some that movie called The First Slam Dunk had won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Animation. It beat Makoto Shinkai's new movie, Suzume, and two anime musicals I loved from 2022, One Piece Movie: Red and Inu-Oh. The audience was full of young kids and their parents excited to see young men play some cartoon basketball. They were all cheering, we were all cheering. The First Slam Dunk is one of the best sports movies I have seen.
Frankly, this was the single best sporting event, fiction, non-fiction, whatever, that I saw in 2023. Maybe just behind the Broncos upsetting the Bills in Buffalo, which I got to see in person. But that game was a sloppy farce. The First Slam Dunk was the real deal. If you wonder what a good game looks like, examine the game shown in this movie, all the twists and turns, all the dramatic shifts in score. We have two great teams with very different styles and personalities playing their hardest and at their best in a high school basketball championship. It is the underdog misfits, Shohoku High School taking on the powerhouse Sannoh Kogyo High. Classic tale of the scrappy fun team versus the cold, unyielding steamroller. By the end of The First Slam Dunk, my audience might have forgotten all this was fiction, it was not a movie anymore, it was sports magic.
The First Slam Dunk follows a great documentary structure of cutting from the present to the backstories of our heroes. Think of things like The Last Dance or Secret Base's history of The Cleveland Cavaliers. In the early minutes of the championship game, Shohoku's hopes are dashed when Sannoh Kogyo's attack goes entirely to plan, methodically building a brutal lead. Meanwhile, we cut back to our protagonist, Ryota Miyagi (Shugo Nakamura)'s early life learning to love basketball as a little brother to a rising star. Ryota is a short king, but has been the little guy on the court all his life, he knows how make up height with speed and quick judgment. Unfortunately, for most of the first half, Sannoh Kogyo has Ryota completely boxed out and beaten. Our hero should shine thanks to his tragic history and determination, but he is not the core of his team tonight. Is this ever going to turn around? Will any of the boys on Shohoku, including the ex-thug or the pretty boy figure anything out?
There is an interesting choice to mix CG and 2D animation in The First Slam Dunk. I could understand not liking this choice. But I'm sure the director, Takehiko Inoue, consulted with the mangaka, Takehiko Inoue, on how best to bring his work to the screen. The online screenshots do not do the movie full justice. The ultimate goal is fluidity and realism. The First Slam Dunk captures how a basketball play develops, and how a one-on-one match-up unfolds better than any other movie I've ever seen. This is movie clearly made by people who have studied this sport and how bodies move while playing it down to every detail. All the players in the championship, even the opposing team, have unique technique, physicality, and personalities reflected in their play. Basketball media has generated superhuman heroes that overshadow everything, the Chicago Bulls are less famous than Michael Jordan. Yet, this is a team sport, and team synergy and strategy is what really makes things work. So eventually, Shohoku, once they finally recover from their early defeats, can start matching Sannoh Kogyo, even with on-paper less talented players. It just takes the right guys for the right moments, the right adjustments, and, to be lazy and use a sports cliche, momentum.
I think I understand basketball better having seen this movie. I appreciate the art and technique now, the beauty of it. That's the biggest compliment I can give to any movie, that it makes the audience love its obsessions. The First Slam Dunk nails it.
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