I saw Nowhere Girl (Tokyo mukokuseki shojo) in theatre yesterday and it was pretty interesting. The trailer didn't look good but that might be because it's an extremely difficult movie to advertise. More about that in a moment.
Nana Seino (from Tokyo Tribe) stars as an art school student who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. She's being bullied by other students, her teachers are growing sick of the situation, and she seems to be going crazy. But there's more than meets the eye, and she's more than a little dangerous, as proved by a certain ultra-violent sequence near the end.
What we have here is an ultra-slow paced, highly arthouse esque film. I can understand some audiences will be bored to death, and the guy in front of me slept half of the movie, but I found it relatively interesting. It works when Seino is in the frame; not when she isn't. And then we have an ending that should not be spoiled, and indeed, the trailer doesn't spoil it either. But it is a very satisfying ending indeed.
Before the final act there also a pretty long, bloody sequence that suffers from some unfortunate CGI blood, but it's a little less distracting than usual and there's also practical effects. And Seino is very impressive in it!
So, absolutely not for all audiences, and I can imagine those fans of Oshii to whom his name only equals to Ghost in the Shell complaining (again). But I've always thought his live action work was interesting (Stray Dogs is my favourite; a fantastic movie) and found this to be pretty good as well. And, oh well, maybe a few more people will see it if I mention it includes uncensored female full frontal nudity. Unfortunately not Seino. There's the real disappointment!
Trailer:
https://youtu.be/UKZ5ohS389I
