GO! is a coming of age, action romance film that seems rooted in the Japanese-Korean history and the violence and discrimination that minorities in a country space. This underdog tale is seeped in the gang like relationships that influence Sugihara’s life from a young age, and the machismo patriarchy that is so often exemplified by immigrant fathers.

Like many male leads, Sugihara seems to both hate and look up to his father. He’s a fighter, a boxer and a survivor. Despite not having a knackering for violence, Sugihara’s father trains him on the eat or be eaten mindset, making him a totem pole that Japanese students desperately want to knock down to earn some cool points. The film begins with the Chicken Run opening scene,

The very violence that makes Sugihara cool, is what steals his best friend away from him.

Sugihara’s coolness comes from being these key things:

1. strong
2. smart
3. kind
4. different and indifferent
5. relatable

Sugihara is painfully aware of his status as an other, a zainichi who is targeted by others, feared by others, yet he doesn’t let it erode his sense of right and wrong, and we see him trying to do right by others in the scenes such as Jeong Il’s funeral.

Sugihara isn’t easily swayed by the call for revenge, and instead sees his friends honest intentions through his own grief.

In the same way, in the first hotel night with Sakuragi, Sugihara feels it’s important to disclose his ethnicity to Sakuraji despite being nervous about the subject, in case she might have doubts or change her mind about being with a zainichi. In addition, he gives Sakuraji a chance — and hears her out but not before yelling his side.

In contrasting the book and the film, it’s interesting that the book opens up with the scene of Hawaii, I find this particularly interesting that they refer to it as “symbol of depraved capitalism”. In the book we quickly get into Sugihara’s relationship, but in the film it seems to take time unraveling Sugihara’s upbringing, almost as if emphasizing that the background is just as important as the love story. Additionally, in the film it feels like the director gives each character equal weight. Jeong Il, the love interest, the father and mother all have cameos and dynamics that show us the different sides of Sugihara.

The film seems to place a much larger emphasis on Sugihara’s struggles as a zainichi. It starts with a cameo from Sugihara, ruminating about identity and race, and ends with a happy acceptance of him from Sakuraji. In every country and in every decade scapegoat theory seems prevalent. It seems no matter what country, no matter what era, nationalists find a group to blame for the short comings of “the country as a whole”, creating needless violence, tension and division. Go! focuses on illustrating these themes to a Japanese audience through the lens of a cool and relatable youth character.