Reborn

Plot synopsis:
In Reborn! a boy, Tsunayoshi "Tsuna" Sawada, is chosen to become the tenth boss of the Vongola Family, as he is the great-great-great-great grandson of the first Vongola boss—who moved to Japan from Italy. Timoteo, the Vongola IX—the current head of the family—, sends Reborn, an infant hitman from Italy, to train the reluctant Tsuna. Reborn's chief teaching method is the "Dying Will Bullet" (死ぬ気弾, Shinukidan), which causes a person to be "reborn" with a stronger self to execute his dying wish. The clumsy, underachieving Tsuna becomes stronger, more confident and willing, making him a suitable Vongola family boss despite his continued reluctance. He makes several friends, including Kyoko Sasagawa.
Tsuna gets out of many scrapes on his way to becoming the Vongola boss, fighting escaped Mafia convicts posing as Kokuyo Junior High School students. The Varia, the Vongola assassin squad, want their boss, Xanxus, to be the Vongola boss and initiate a competition with Tsuna. To defeat the Varia, Reborn recruits Tsuna's schoolmates as Vongola guardians: Hayato Gokudera, an explosives expert who wants to be Tsuna's right-hand man; Takeshi Yamamoto, an athlete who likes baseball and thinks of the Mafia as a game; Ryohei Sasagawa, captain of the school boxing club, and head prefect Kyoya Hibari. Lambo, a weak infant hitman who wants to kill Reborn; and Chrome Dokuro, a girl with links to the criminal Mukuro Rokudo, also join them.
After defeating the Varia, Tsuna and his friends are transported to the future to face the Millefiore family, who are killing the Vongolas. They discover that the Arcobaleno, the seven strongest infants, are dead except for Lal Mirch. When Tsuna and the Vongola guardians fight the Millefiore, they learn that Shoichi Irie, a comrade of Tsuna's future self, sent them to the future because the future Tsuna said they were the only ones able to defeat Millefiore leader Byakuran. Byakuran, who has obtained knowledge from parallel worlds, wants to obtain all the Mafia rings to become omniscient.
Tsuna and his group defeat Byakuran and return to the present, where they learn that he is to be installed as Vongola X. The ceremony is disrupted by the Shimon Family, who have sworn revenge on the Vongola founding father for allegedly betraying the first Shimon boss. Tsuna confronts the Shimon Family on a secluded island; the Vindice, a group of former Arcobaleno who protect the laws of the mafia, are involved in the fight and imprison the losers. After several battles it is learned that Daemon Spade, an illusionist and first Vongola generation guardian, was manipulating Shimon, using the conflict to control Mukuro Rokudo and remake the Vongolas in his image. The combined strength of Tsuna and Shimon's leader, Enma Kozato, defeats him.
After Tsuna reconciles with Shimon, Reborn and the other Arcobaleno compete among themselves to remove their curse. Each Arcobaleno chooses a representative to fight for them and the winner will be able to undo the curse. The Vindice enter the competition, informing Reborn and Tsuna that the tournament is a front for the selection of a new Arcobaleno; the previous Arcobaleno die or become Vindice. Tsuna joins the remaining teams to defeat Bermuda, a former Arcobaleno, and the Vindice. On the final day of the Representative Battle of the Rainbow, Tsuna defeats Bermuda and his team. Checker Face, who inflicted the Arcobaleno Curse of the Rainbow, reveals his true identity as Kawahira, administrator of the humankind's ultimate power, Tri-ni-set. Finding another way to keep the Tri-ni-set safe, Kawahira agrees to entrust it to future generations and remove the curse.
After the Arcobaleno battle, Tsuna refuses to become the tenth head of the Vongola Family and Reborn leaves. A week after his departure, Tsuna realises that he is still his no-good self; nothing has changed. Reborn returns to train Tsuna as Neo-Vongola Primo, similar to Vongola Decimo; Tsuna remembers that he now has friends he can rely on and has been changed by his experiences, thanks to his tutor and partner Reborn.

Tags: romantic

Review:
REBORN (Bigas Luna, 1981) **1/2. This was a complete obscurity for me when I chanced upon it on the weekly TV guide but, with that cast (Dennis Hopper, Michael Moriarty, Francisco Rabal) and director (Bigas Luna), I decided to check it out. As it turned out, it's a bizarre and wildly uneven religious satire (with some mild horror/thriller elements added towards the end) but a handful of powerful moments make it worth watching nevertheless. In short, it deals with an introverted Italian woman who suffers from stigmata attacks and is invited by a flamboyant American televangelist (Hopper) to appear on his show; the ensuing repercussions include an unheralded miracle cure during a mass rally and her falling in love with her "captor" (Moriarty, giving his typically offbeat characterization) after a traumatic first sexual encounter in a hotel room - in itself, a very disturbing and blackly comic sequence. The rushed ending, featuring sympathetic aide-turned-villain Rabal chasing Moriarty and the woman as Hopper flips out at his headquarters is clumsy and incoherent but the disjointed whole is held together somewhat by the constant and effectively unnerving (this being the 1980s, would it be otherwise?) synthesizer-based music score.. I did the final cut on this film. I was the producer of the completion of this film and have the credit of Producer on the print. Bigas Lunas has a unique and powerful style, letting Hopper go fairly wild here, but within the confines of Bigas's deeply felt spirituality. The film is full of unforgettable moments and images, many so vivid that they can change our remembrance of what is real. The film moves from Houston with Hopper in a revivalist church, a minister losing his faith. The film moves to Spain, where a young woman experiences an unusual stigmata-like experience that clearly sets her as an affirmation of Catholic reality. Beautiful, disturbing and I hope, worth seeing.. Unusual and compelling (Christian) religious horror. Bigas Luna is a truly original filmmaker, and this is a very strange, but very interesting movie. It's kind of a second-coming movie, only very different from what you'd expect. Michael Moriarty and Dennis Hopper are both great. I'd mostly recommend it to fans of strange low-key horror.