UK Premiere

Director Ryuichi Hiroki will be in attendance

Rotten Tomatoes' Critics Select

Short Synopsis

Ryuchi Hiroki’s second collaboration with the winning team of actress Shinobu Terajima and screenwriter Haruhiko Arai has been cited by many critics as the best Japanese film of its year.

Review

Yuko is 35, single, out of work, and on medication to combat her manic depression. Living in Kamata Town (“not an ounce of chic”, according to her web page) Yuko divides her time between a variety of men friends, each with his own peculiarities. Her university classmate, Homma, suffers from impotence. K, whom she meets on the net, is a self-confessed pervert. Then there is a young gangster, Yasuda, who is a fellow manic depressive. Her cousin, Shoichi, is also on the scene, having left his family to pursue his mistress, only to be given the cold shoulder by her, too.

Yuko seems to create a different persona (and a different history) depending on whom she is talking to. Human contact is important to her, but sometimes her condition makes it difficult for others to endure her company.

Following the highly acclaimed Vibrator in 2003, Hiroki’s second collaboration with this winning team: actress Shinobu Terajima and screenwriter Haruhiko Arai, has been cited by many critics as the best Japanese film of its year.

Jasper Sharp


About Ryuichi Hiroki

Born 1954. After trained in “pink film”, a soft-core film, he became on his own with an erotic film, “Seigyaku-Onna wo Abaku (Catch the Woman Out)” in ’82. He got the scholarship at Sundance company in Tokyo and went to join the seminar in Sundance, which script worked then later became Tokyo Trash Baby shot on DV in ’00. His films has been critically successful both at home and abroad. He has become one of prolific directors in Japan now.

FILMOGRAPHY
2004  L’Amant
2004  Girlfriend (Someone please stop the world)
2003 Vibrator
2003  Keiji tai Keiji (Cops vs Cops) short film
2002 Rihatsu tenshu no kanashimi (The Barber’s Sadness)
2001  Bikyaku Meiro (Labyrinth of Leg Fetishism)
2000 Tokyo gomi onna (Tokyo Trash Baby)
2000 Futei no kisetsu (I Am an S and M Writer)
1999   Tenshi ni misuterareta yoru (The Night the Angel Turned Away)
1999  Hareta Hiniwa (On a Brighter Day)
1996 MIDORI
1996 Gerende ga tokeru hodo koi shitai (A Love to Melt the Snow)
1995  Kimi to Itsumademo (Forever with you)
1994 800 (800 Two Lap Runner)
1994  Muma (Evil Dream)
1993 Maougai (Sadistic City)
1990  Sawako no Koi (A Love Affair with Sawako)
1989 Doutei Monogatari 4-Bokumo Ski ni Tsuretette (Virgin Story 4-Take me                         
to the skiing)
1982 Seigyaku-Onna wo Abaku (Catch the Woman Out)