A watchable and interesting – if a tad worshipful – study of soft-metal rockers X-Japan, a huge, hysteria-inducing force in their native land since the early 1980s but only now, after breakup and reconvening, making serious inroads in the west. Sitting in that point in the Venn diagram where Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Mötley Crüe overlap, X-Japan have evolved their own twists on the pomp-rock style: insane haircuts, kabuki makeup, a drummer who collapses after every performance, and a lead singer who disappeared for a decade into a sinister cult. There’s quite a lot of adolescent-angst talk of death and blood, but some real pathos under the surface shimmer: particularly with drummer Yoshiki, the film’s main focus, who still seems in shock over his father’s death when he was 10.
