More operatic and brutal than the technicolor West Side Story with light, shadows and Fukusaku-esque bloodletting to match. As a child of the 80’s who remembers Luna and La Bella Ferrara and Umbertos and Paouluccis, this film captured the feel of those streets and the strange hard border between Little Italy and Chinatown.
It feels like a B movie, and maybe in some sense it is. But the love, the intent, the setting, the hostilities all feel hyper-real. Like a dream you had after seeing a street fight be diffused coming home from a dinner at Luna’s.
Of course all of these territorial battles are moot now. Matcha stands and soup dumpling restaurants have long conquered downtown Manhattan - with both enclaves now fighting the hipster doofuses of “Dimes Square”.
But this film captures the opera of the 80s - when all of this felt new and “foreign”. But really it was just our fellow Americans looking for their rightful home.