Bootleg Film (海賊版 Bootleg Film) (Japan, 1999) [DVD] – 1.5/5
Screenwriter Masaki Kobayashi's puzzlingly bad sophomore directorial effort. The film starts out alright as a monochrome slacker road movie with two badly behaving men (Akira Emoto and Kippei Shiina) heading to the funeral of a woman they both loved. But it soon starts to fall apart when a dead body is found in the trunk. Kobayashi then turn the movie into a self-conscious film reference festival and junior high level Tarantino spoof, where characters are constantly referencing other movies and filmmakers. It's neither clever nor funny, but embarrassingly amateurish and most unexpected from a writer of Kobayashi's calibre. The ending is even worse, an extended sequence of a naked woman's body being carried around, which somehow comes out much more sexist than probably anything in the numerous pink films Kobayashi wrote for his usual collaborator Toshiki Sato. There are narrative issues as well, with the opening scenes organized so confusingly that it's hard to grasp who was whose lover, who divorced who, and which one of the women in the flashbacks is now dead. It's a shame, as one feels the wintery Hokkaido setting, the compact 74 minute running time, and the slacker vibes that should appeal to Nobuhiro Yamashita fans, should have come together in a much better film. At least movie is true to its title, but you’d have expected a higher quality bootleg at least.
Dancing in Her Dreams (女は夢で踊る) (Japan, 2020) [Streaming] – 3.5/5
A surprisingly touching and (sadly) timely love letter to Japan’s few surviving strip theatres, down to less than 20 since the peak years in the 70s when more than 250 were in operation nationwide. And the current count is further down by one since two weeks ago when the Osaka police raided Toyo Show, a theatre loved by customers and dancers alike, and arrested both the owners and the dancers, accused of indecency (allowing a woman’s nude body to be seen in an art performance). This film blends fiction and reality, setting its story in Hiroshima’s famed strip theatre Hiroshima Daiichi and modelling its main character after its owner. The film does passable job introducing newcomers to the often misunderstood art which has in recent years become increasingly popular among female audiences too, many being moved to tears by the beauty of the performances and blown away by the choreography, costumes, lighting, storylines, and the queenly presence of the dancers, but one can’t help but to wish the film had focused on the dancers rather than the venue owner. It’s a love story between the owner and a dancer in the past, and a bittersweet tribute to the art in the present, out of its two timelines, occasionally a bit clumsy but ultimately quite moving. A larger cast and more performance scenes would’ve been welcome though, as the film only features up and coming actress Izumi Okamura and real life dancer legend Yoko Yazawa on stage. Fittingly, when the real Hiroshima Daiichi closed down a year after this film’s release, Yazawa was the final performer just like in the film *.
* The Japanese LE BD release comes with an invaluable 50 minute feature documenting the last couple of weeks of the real Hiroshima Daiichi. The theatre is also featured in the documentary film Odoriko (2020).
P.S. this movie was well received by current and retired dancers, some like Serina Komiyama saying they had never cried so hard while watching a movie, and many commenting they’ve lived through every moment and emotion seen in the film.
Subbed trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca6iVhE2zKo
You can see the running times for the films Laputa screened here:
