To be honest I did not have high hopes going in to GTO: The Movie. A live action adaptation of a relatively minor anime series shot for little money with a largely unknown cast I expected the quirky high school drama to be little more than fluff. But here's the thing: it is fluff, but it's very good fluff. With a story driven by eager reporters, serial criminals with police in hot pursuit, suicidal love struck teens, a sympathetic cow, and a former biker turned highly unorthodox high school teacher the film threatens to blow off in all sorts of different directions but thanks to some charismatic lead performances it stays remarkably grounded and becomes more than the sum of its parts.
GTO, short for Great Teacher Onizuka, is a story told in flash back by a youthful human issues reporter. Ten years earlier, desperate for the scoop that would make her carreer, our young reporter tracked a wallet she believes was dropped by a highly wanted criminal to a town in remote, rural Hokkaido. The town, once the site of a Canadian themed amusement park – a concept very amusing to this particular Canadian – has fallen on hard times and is filled with listless youth and out of work adults. Upon arrival she quickly discovers the just-arrived substitute high school teacher Onizuka, the owner of her discovered wallet who she assumes in the wanted criminal in disguise.
To say Onizuka is not like most teachers is an understatement. Young, impulsive and disrespectful of authority Onizuka seems more like a student than a teacher. He rolls into town on a motorcycle fresh out of gas and, seeing a pair of bullies working over a meek teen, he jumps in and robs the bullies of their cash himself so he can afford to put gas in his tank. Arriving at school to find a girl from his class threatening to jump from the roof ledge he jumps up with her – taking another student with him – and asks her to let the other student go first. See a fight brewing? Don't break it up, gather all the students together and start taking bets. Lessons? You never see him teach any. The kids want to walk out? Let ‘em go. But for all his quirks and general oddity it soon becomes clear that there is a method to Onizuka's madness and the lessons he's teaching have little to do with text books and everything to do with self empowerment and the true nature and value of friendship.
The core of the film is the three way relationship between Onizuka and two of his students, Raku and Ayano, both of whom he witnesses attempting suicide one his first day in town. Ayano is the friendless daughter of a local business magnate who effectively owns and runs everything in town. Seperated from her peers by her wealth and their relative poverty Ayano has given up on everything and everyone around her. Raku, the son of dairy farmers, is a quiet, meek, oft-bullied boy whose sole confidante is a young calf on his parent's farm and who is secretly and hopelessly in love with Ayano. Everyone seems trapped in their respective roles until Onizuka arrives and begins stirring the pot.
The film plays like an absurdly immature take on Dead Poet's Society with the anime roots fully evident. I kept thinking to myself that this really shouldn't work, that Onizuka should just be annoying, but strangely enough it all holds together. Why? First, although the direction is generally fairly flat it does capture just enough of the anime style to firmly establish that this is all happening in some alternate reality. The film establishes its own world quickly and stays within it, following its own peculiar logic throughout. Second, the lead performance of Onizuka treads the line between subtlety and camp without ever once slipping.
Make no mistakes, we're not talking about a classic here. We're not looking at serious social commentary or any other such thing. It is, however, a surprisingly good little film, far better than I expected and far better than it really has any right to be. Worth a look.
Yeah, I've heard that's good ... is it available subtitled anywhere?
Ebay if you want to get it on DVD from bootleggers. It has been subbed very well by a fansubbing group and is widely available online for free. It's really the only way to get it subbed unfortunately.
Actually, the original manga series and anime were hardly "minor".
The manga sold over 23,000,000 copies across Asia and the anime series was also hugely popular. Popular enough to inspire the live-action TV series that made a star of its lead actor, and that in turn spun off this movie.
I don't suggest paying for fansubs which should be free. If you request it, I'm sure someone would be kind enough to post all of the episodes of the drama on Usenet.
The fansub of the tv-drama was done by the Japan-TV group (http://www.jtv-drama.org/). It was done quite a while ago, but it looks like all of the episodes are still being seeded, including the Special episode (twitchfilm.net's comment system didn't like the domain name of their tracker, so I'm unable to post a direct link to the torrent files - sorry). The legality of downloading these is certainly questionable, but at least you're not giving money to a non-deserving bootlegger.
Just a quick note about the anime to live-action comparisons—the GTO live-action series came out before the anime, so it would be better to say that the live-action series inspired the anime rather than the other way around. The GTO manga came out in 1997, the live-action series in 1998, and the anime in 1999 (the same year as the GTO movie).
Can some one help me? I just started watching GTO yesterday the live Drama version with Takashi Sorimachi. My friend DL this and it's 12 episodes (don't know if there is more but he only gave me 12). I would like to buy the DVD version, checked Ebay and other sites on GOOGLE but they all say that the movie is 1 disk @ 108min. -_- so is there 2 different live versions of GTO?
The story of GTO....is what I'm watching the sequel? should i watch the Anime version first?
All help and recommendations is greatly appreciated.
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A moim zdaniem GTO jest wyjebaneee :D KURWAA lepszego anime o szkole nie widzialem... chodzi o to ze nie ma tam zadnych scen sexualnych.... choc erotycznych podtekstow jest pełno;p
Film niby kreci sie koło dupy a jednak nie:D a POZATYM ONIZUKA JEST PRAWICZKIEM:D:D:D:D^,..,^ i bite you all;p
this film is a good watching film. Does it has sequence?
The Live action is much better than both the movie and the anime... but i belive that the Manga... is right up there with the live Action Series... and shonan Junai Gumi (manga of young Onizuka) came out a few months ago and the second volume is due to come out this month... i highly suggest this read, for all you manga readers out there..
just one question from me... does anyone know where I can get a DVD or even VHS tapes (finds VHS, blows off all the dust) of YOUNG GTO! the anime version of Shonan Junai Gumi... well thanks..
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