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Hayato Ichihara,
Shugo Oshinari,
Ayumi Ito,
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Shunji Iwai
see all cast/crew...
: Homevision
: Drama, Foreign, Japan, Coming of Age
: 146 min.
: Japanese
: English
see additional details...
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Wildly popular filmmaker Shunji Iwai breaks a three-year hiatus following his less than successful April Story with this elliptical drama about teenaged alienation, violence, and celebrity. The film centers on Yuichi Hasumi (Hayato Ichihara), an eighth grader who lives in a sleepy town in rural Japan with his mother, her boyfriend, and the boyfriend's son. At school he is beaten up and harassed by his former friend Hoshino. In order to scrape up the cash to meet Hoshino's daily extortion demand, Yuichi resorts to petty theft and shoplifting. At home he finds sanctuary with his favorite singer Lily Chou-Chou, for whom he has devoted a website called "Liliphilia." One day, he encounters on the net a fellow Lily-phile who goes by the handle "blue cat." As Hoshino's power grows, he demands that Yuichi tail fellow classmate Shiori Tsuda (Yu Aoi), who he is pimping out to older men. Yuichi's suffocating situation at school leads him to consider suicide, something he confesses to "blue cat" -- his only confidant. Things come to a head tragically at a long awaited Lily Chou-Chou concert. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
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| All About Japanese Youth
by talltale
February 22, 2005 - 7:14 PM PST
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2 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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| Rape, muggings, murder, shoplifting, prostitution and other horrors of high school in Japan--much of this set to the lovely strains of Debussy--fill up the strange, sad ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU. Combining the messages from an e-mail chat room dedicated to and for the fans of Lily (a famous pop singer) with the friendships among these kids that warm and cool as they grow, the movie captures the fractured lives of teenagers about as well as any I've seen--but with a distinctly Japanese cultural overlay. Beautifully shot (on video, I imagine), this is an atmospheric, long (nearly 2-1/2 hours) look at the boredom, societal strictures, school cliques and family dysfunction that these students face. While other filmmakers have covered similar terrain (Ming-liang Tsai, Hsiao-hsien Hou among them), this movie is certainly equals theirs and, for my money, accomplishes as much or more in a style that is fascinating, elliptical and beautiful--which makes the sadness and emptiness at its core all the more painful and strange. |
| Sound of music
by praxis
January 24, 2004 - 6:39 PM PST
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7 out of 10 members found this review helpful
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| This is the first Iwai film I've seen, and the elements that really stood out where to music. It always seemed appropriate. It made me feel like I was back in high school, when every major event that shaped me had a soundtrack associated with it. Visually it was also a strong and striking film. The dialogue "in film" was nothing to write home about, but the short expressions in cyberspace were both meaningless and meaningful in that adolescent sort of way. Certainly recommended. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.87)
92 Votes
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