Tag: 2020s

A Girl in My Room (左様なら今晩は, Natsuki Takahashi, 2022)

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A young man reeling from a breakup is suddenly confronted by the literal ghost of lost love in Natsuki Takahashi’s supernaturally-inflected romantic drama A Girl in My Room (左様なら今晩は, Sayonara Konbanwa). Set in the peaceful town of Onomichi, the film finds its hero wasting away pining while wondering if falling in love with a ghost is all that bad only to later ask himself if any of it was real or just a fantasy of his lovelorn mind. 

As the film opens, Yohei’s (Riku Hagiwara) girlfriend of two years, Rena (Riko Nagase), moves out of their apartment apparently sick of his superficiality and inconsiderate nature. Soon after, Yohei becomes aware that a ghost has been living in their apartment with them the whole time only should she couldn’t manifest because Rena apparently had unusually strong spiritual energy. Though originally frightened by the new presence, Yohei soon warms to the woman he names “Aisuke” (Shiori Kubo) and becomes determined to find out who she was and how she died only no one will tell him. 

Of course, Aisuke could just be the symbolic ghost of Rena, a spectre of lost love confronting him with his romantic failure, but also seems to have an inner life of her own even if she can’t remember much about who she was when she was alive and how it was she came to die in the apartment. Fleeting memories seem to hint at a life of loneliness marked by romantic longing in which she wanted nothing more than a regular grown-up relationship though sadly it never happened for her. If she has unfinished business, then falling in love may be part of it but then it’s clear that any potential relationship between herself and Yohei is doomed to failure seeing as she is already dead. 

Aisuke chose Yohei because she thought he was a good boyfriend after seeing him with Rena, but even so agrees that though he seems nice on the surface he never really thinks about anything and responds to criticism by smoothing it over with an apology rather than reflecting on his actions or trying to better himself. Work colleague Kanan (Rina Ono), who also has a crush on him, conversely claims that Yohei shows his kindness too easily though also remarking that kindness in itself can also be problematic. In any case, as he bonds with Aisuke, Yohei does seem to engage more with his flaws and reflect on the mistakes he may have made in his relationship with Rena in order to become not just a better boyfriend but a better person. 

In these respects, Aisuke becomes a romantic mirror confronting him with the problematic aspects of his own personality but somehow gaining in corporeality as the relationship progresses as if love were bringing her back to life. But then Kanan also claims that that’s because Aisuke is unwittingly sucking the life out of him which is why he looks tired and gaunt. A picture she took of him on her phone has a dark aura over his face hinting at something malevolent at work that’s taking a toll on his health. But as much as he’s warned, Yohei determines to stay with Aisuke, slowly falling in love with her in the wake of his failed relationship.

Partly a fable about the dangers of remaining trapped by the ghost of lost love rather than resolving to move on, the film is also a poignant love story in which the pair must help each other overcome their mutual unfinished business while becoming aware that their liminal romance cannot continue forever. A side plot involving an estate agent and his endless calls from a confused older gentleman randomly asking him for legal and life advice hints at other kinds of living ghosts and urban loneliness but also at those willing to take care of them as perhaps the estate agent did with Yohei and Aisuke in a bit of supernatural matchmaking helping each of them to begin moving on with their lives on either side of the mortal divide. Charmingly quirky and comforting in its tranquil setting, Takahashi ends on a poignant, bittersweet note but also one of warmth in which the ghost of lost love doesn’t so much haunt as abide, a constant source of comfort in a lonely existence.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Iwane: Sword of Serenity (居眠り磐音, Katsuhide Motoki, 2019)

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The contradictions of the samurai code conspire against one noble-hearted young man in Katsuhide Motoki’s adaptation of the long running series of historical novels by Saeki Yasuhide, Iwane: Sword of Serenity (居眠り磐音, Inemuri Iwane). Yet this truly serene samurai is a stoical sort, learning to bear his pain with fortitude while standing up for justice in an increasingly corrupt Edo where money rules all while an ascendent merchant class continues to challenge the fiercely hierarchical social order. 

Beginning in 1772 which turned out to be a disastrous year, the tale opens as hero Iwane (Tori Matsuzaka) prepares to return home after completing his three year rotation in Edo in the company of childhood friends Kinpei (Tasuku Emoto) and Shinnosuke (Yosuke Sugino). Shinnosuke is in fact married to Kinpei’s sister Mai, while Iwane will himself be married to Kinpei’s other sister Nao immediately on his return so close are they. As Iwane’s father tells him, there are great hopes for these young men that they can “turn our outdated clan around”, but events will conspire against them. Spoiling the happy homecoming, Shinnosuke is accosted by a drunken uncle who convinces him Mai has been unfaithful in his absence with the consequence that he kills her immediately on his return home. Unable to understand this turn of events, Kinpei confronts his friend but eventually kills him, while Iwane is then forced to kill Kinpei after he goes on murderous rampage in revenge for the wrong done to his sister. 

In trying to mediate the case, the argument is put forward that Shinnosuke acted rashly and should have brought his suspicion to the authorities rather than opting for summary execution. The lord however disagrees, condoning Shinnosuke’s actions under the rationale that to do so would have been considered “weak minded” while as Shinnosuke himself had claimed he acted in accordance with the samurai code in which female adultery is illegal and punishable by death. By contrast, he finds Kinpei’s rashness offensive, insisting that he also should have recognised the legitimacy of his sister’s murder and simply left quietly with her body. Having learned the truth in which his childhood friends became victims of clan intrigue, romantic jealousy, and tragic misunderstandings in this Othello-like plot, Shinnosuke and childhood sweetheart Nao are also consumed by the rashness of samurai law each exiled from their clan and cast adrift in Edo-era society. 

Edo-era society is however also itself corrupt. Some months later, Iwane has returned to Edo as a lowly ronin lodging with a kindly old man, Kinbei, who helps him find a job firstly gutting eel then as a bodyguard at a money exchange which has been receiving anonymous threats they assume are from rival broker Awaya who has hatched a nefarious plan to manipulate the currency market to stop the current Shogun introducing a new unit which can be used in both Edo and Kyoto which would understandably cut into his already corrupt business model. Luckily, Imazuya is an honourable man who backs the new currency plan and wants to do the right thing which makes him a perfect fit for Iwane’s innate sense of justice. “You don’t know the way of the merchant” Awaya snaps at him, suggesting both that the samurai are already on their way down as the merchants rise and that his unwillingness to play dirty will be his downfall. Nevertheless, Iwane is the type to adapt quickly, instantly coming up with a way to play Awaya at his own game and kick his destructive amoral capitalism to the curb. 

Meanwhile, he continues to pine for Nao while drawing closer to Kinbei’s earnest daughter Okon (Fumino Kimura). As we discover Nao is also a victim of an intensely patriarchal social order but through the tragedy that befalls them also finds strength and agency making a life changing decision that allows her to become independent while looking after her family if in the knowledge that the childhood romance she shared with Iwane is a thing of the past. Iwane too agrees that he is trapped in a living hell of guilt and grief, yet choosing to go on living anyway as calm and cheerful as he’d ever been while standing up to Edo-era corruption though uncomfortably enough this time against the destabilising influence of the rising merchant class and therefore in contrast to most jidaigeki reinforcing the legitimacy of the samurai order which has paradoxically also ruined his life with its rigid and implacable social codes. In any case, Motoki’s classic chanbara melodrama has a serenity of its own as the cheerfully laidback hero resolves to live his life by a code of his own free of samurai constraint. 

Trailer (no subtitles)

On the Edge of Their Seats (アルプススタンドのはしの方, Hideo Jojo, 2020)

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It’s only natural to be a little anxious in the last year of high school but a collection of his school students are in danger of giving up before their lives have even started in Hideo Jojo’s zeitgeisty dramedy On the Edge of their Seats (アルプススタンドのはしの方, alps stand no hashi no kata). Adapted from a stage play written and performed by a high school drama club, the effortlessly witty dialogue has a lived-in quality while pregnant with its own anxieties as the teens each deal with their private disappointments while wondering if there’s any point in trying when all their efforts are doomed to failure. 

Best friends Asuha (Rina Ono) and Hikaru (Marin Nishimoto) for example are still dealing with the fallout from losing their place in a regional drama competition when one of them got sick and couldn’t perform. Fujino (Amon Hirai) quit the baseball team after realising he’d never be as good as the lead pitcher, and the shy Megumi (Shuri Nakamura) struggles with social interaction while unexpectedly having her thunder stolen by popular girl Tomoka (Hikari Kuroki) who not only beat her to first place in the last exams but is also dating her crush, Sonoda who is the star of the baseball team. 

None of them exactly wanted to come and watch their high school baseball team anyway which is why they’re way up in the bleachers. “Is the fabled last summer of high school meant to be so boring?” Asuha sighs, reflecting on the disappointing ordinariness of the end of her youth. It’s just one more thing she claims “can’t be helped” like the cancellation of the play or life’s myriad other disappointments. The ironic thing is that they’ve been bussed all the way into school in the middle of summer to watch their team lose, badly, to one that reached the national finals the year before. Perhaps you can’t blame them for their sense of futility. 

Yet it’s just this kind of defeatism that they end up facing, encouraged by their over-enthusiastic English teacher and the school band to shout their hearts out for their friends on the field. “Life is all about swinging and striking out” their teacher tells them, trying to reassure the teens that it’s worth taking the risk as they continue to meditate on disappointment and inertia. Fujino quit baseball because he thought it was pointless to continue when he’d always lose out to Sonoda, but his teammate Yano, who is objectively bad, stayed on and continued to train intensively despite his low prospects of ever being allowed on the field. He wonders who had the right idea, him or Yano, and whether it’s wiser to switch tracks when something doesn’t work for you or really it was just petulant resentment that led him to give up without putting up much of a fight. 

Though none of them were particularly invested in the game to begin with, when they talk about “baseball” they’re really talking about a lot of other things and gradually begin to rebel against the “can’t be helped” philosophy that led them to give in to disappointment. The shy and secretly lonely Megumi discovers that Tomoka doesn’t have it all that great either, eventually forging a spiritual bond in their shared desire to support Sonoda who after all is not having a great day on the mound. There’s something a little ironic in the choice of Sonoda’s favourite intro song, Train-Train by the Blue Hearts, which neatly reflects the teens’ internal anxiety along with the messages of living in the moment. 

What they learn is in essence that if you’ve done your best and it still doesn’t work out then that’s alright and there’s nothing to be afraid of so you might as well swing for the fences even if you miss. They remain “spectators” in one sense, but in becoming emotionally involved in the baseball game that we never see but only hear about the teens regain the courage and desire to take a more active part while gently bonding in their shared sense of solidarity and renewed hope for the future. Witty and warmhearted, Jojo’s innovatively lensed coming-of-age drama has a poignant quality of youthful nostalgia but also genuine heart in its gentle advocation for the art of perseverance. 

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Train-Train by the Blue Hearts

Moneyboys (金錢男孩, C.B. Yi, 2021)

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“Who doesn’t sell themselves to make money?” a young man asks in C.B. Yi’s melancholy mainland-set drama Moneyboys (金錢男孩, Jīnqián Nánhái) relating the story of a relative who worked as a tanner all his life, became ill from the effects of the chemicals, and died alone far from home. He may suggest that the exploitative nature of contemporary capitalism will eventually consume you, but it’s an older set of social codes that do for Fei (Kai Ko) who consumes himself in a pathological desire for self-sacrifice as if constantly trying to prove himself worthy of acceptance.

As we first meet Fei he introduces himself as “Jackson”, a naive country boy in the city seeking a means to support his struggling rural family which he finds in sex work. Through his job, he encounters the swaggering Xiaolai (JC Lin) who introduces himself as “Max” and takes him under his wing. Soon they fall head over heels in love, but Xiaolai fears Fei’s desperation and lack of judgment in his choice of client, an anxiety which is later borne out when Fei is badly beaten by a local gangster. Filled with rage, Xiaolai attacks him with a metal bar but ends up badly beaten himself and thereafter sought by the police. Not wanting any trouble, Fei skips town and five years later has started a new, apparently much more successful life, in another city. 

“You’re always living for others” he’s later told by a childhood friend, Long (Bai Yufan), whose long-term crush on him Fei seems to be wilfully ignoring, “the way you sacrifice yourself, you constantly hurt yourself and sometimes others too”. Fei’s self-sacrificing nature does indeed seem to have a masochist component as he wilfully puts himself in dangerous situations to get money to provide for his family. His family, however, reject him precisely because of the nature of the sacrifices he is making. Returning to his home town after being unjustly hassled by local police who attempt to entrap him by getting an undercover officer to pose as a client and searching his home for drugs, Fei is physically attacked by a belligerent uncle who can’t stop ranting about Fei’s marital status beginning by berating him that his family is embarrassed because he has no wife before revealing that they all know about “what you did in the city” and are shamed by it. His father barely looks at him, though his sister appears to know and encourages him to find the right person and hold on to them because life is long and she doesn’t want him to be lonely. 

Later, another woman reassures him that he is “someone who deserves love” though he struggles to accept it. He feels indebted to Xiaolai because he lost a leg for him, unable to move past the transactional nature of love to accept it from someone who wants only the same in return. Consumed by internalised shame he struggles to let go of outdated traditional social codes and unlike Long is unwilling to abandon them in order to live the life he wants. One of his sex worker friends in his new city eventually enters into a sham marriage with a woman who is fully aware of the realities and later pledges to move back to the country and raise a child as a conventional husband and father while tearfully explaining that six years with the gay community have been the best of his life. He too has made a sacrifice of himself for his family but is already torn apart with disappointment and resentment. 

Fei’s tragedy is that he tries to please everyone but himself, revelling in his self-sacrificing suffering and barely noticing when others are caught in the crossfire. Unable to let himself go, he is left only with the memory of the one time he was happy, which wasn’t the one he originally thought it was, and the simultaneous knowledge that he has lost It forever through his own thoughtlessness. Trapped in the past both by the traditional social codes and his thwarted romance with Xiaolai he envisions an ironically progressive compromise but is unable to see the selfishness in his desires perhaps for once putting himself first in failing to consider the feelings of those around him. A neon-lit vista of loneliness, C.B Yi’s melancholy tale of self-imprisonment and the commodification of love discovers only unhappiness in the midst of a repressive social culture defined by the twin poles of rampant consumerism and the filial imperative. 

Trailer (English subtitles)

Ghost Cat Anzu (化け猫あんずちゃん, Yoko Kuno & Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2024)

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It can be comforting, in a way, to think that this world is deeper than we often think it is and that we live surrounded by ancient spirits who touch our lives in ways we never suspect. All of this is, however, a little more palpable in Iketeru, the town of eternal summer, where the heroine of Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s animation Ghost Cat Anzu (化け猫あんずちゃん, Bakemono Anzu-chan) is unceremoniously dumped by her feckless father as he attempts to sort out some persistent trouble with loan sharks. 

Of course, to a girl from Tokyo who hoped to spend the summer break with her cram school crush, being sent to a temple to stay with an estranged grandfather it’s not even clear she has ever met before is not a whole lot of fun. But then as Karin (Noa Goto) says, she’s used to being alone, which might be why she takes against the giant ghost cat, Anzu (Mirai Moriyama), who lives like a human but obviously isn’t one. The funny thing about Iketeru is that no one finds Anzu’s existence odd, if at times troublesome. He’s even patiently arrested by a pair of policemen for not having a proper license for his moped which he didn’t think he needed because, after all, he’s a ghost and also a cat. A pair of little boys who’ve formed their own gang called “The Contrarians” to “defy society” call him “aniki” like some kind of yakuza boss and try to recruit him though being in a gang seems like too much bother for Anzu, which is something he has in common in Karin. 

But the funny thing is, Anzu isn’t really so different from her father in that he too can be somewhat irresponsible. Though he knows he shouldn’t, he spends the money he was keeping for her on pachinko hoping to win big but predictably loses it all. He gets over excited about jobs that pay 3000 yen (£15) a day and overcooks food he’s dropped on the floor because it’ll burn off all the dirt. But like Karin, Anzu can be a little standoffish and it isn’t even until her arrival that he starts to interact with some of the other supernatural creatures in the area who appear to have already set up some kind of club. Having invited them over, Anzu complains they didn’t pay him enough attention and he won’t invite them again while Karin asserts that they seemed “nice”. Though Anzu himself has not yet quite taken to her, the yokai are touched by her tragic circumstances and feelings of abandonment so decide to do what they can to help her. 

Part of Karin’s problem is that she’s still struggling to come to terms with her mother’s death three years previously. Iketeiru calls itself the town of eternal summer, but the summer in Japan is synonymous with the Bon festival during which this world and the other are at their closest and the spirits of the departed may temporarily return. Thus the town itself is a liminal space caught between the living and the dead which the mortal and supernatural co-exist in a very tangible way even if Karin’s eventual descent into hell involves jumping into a broken toilet in a Tokyo columbarium. Even so, she eventually finds herself squaring off against the King of Hell himself in the middle of the Bon festival while straddling the worlds of the living and dead and discovering the will to go on living which is perhaps what the town’s name may actually mean. 

In that sense, it’s a place Karin discovers as much as it’s home to cure her sense of rootless abandonment. The rotoscoped animation and live-recorded dialogue lend a sense of uncanniness to the beautifully animated backgrounds which effortlessly evoke a sense of serenity in the timelessness of a summer in small-town Japan. The juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern, Jizo playing Nintendo Switch, yokai working at the golf course which is perhaps a manifestation of the disruption wrought on the natural world by human endeavour, echo a kind of cosmic irony but also an odd kind of warmth in the strangeness of the world around us with its immortal cat spirits and friendly supernatural creatures that seems a far cry from the sterility of the city with its violent loan sharks and indifferent friends. 

Trailer (English subtitles)

The Gesuidouz (ザ・ゲスイドウズ, Kenichi Ugana, 2024)

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According to Hanako, vocalist of the band The Gesuidouz (ザ・ゲスイドウズ), punk is “like this miso soup”. She later describes the soup as soothing, made by her bandmate Santaro who turns out to be an unexpectedly dab hand in the kitchen, though in many ways the band’s selling point is that they aren’t very good at anything, least of all music. Even so, and quite crucially, they have one devoted, though otherwise anonymous fan who comes to all their gigs and dances wildly which just goes to prove that the old lady who becomes a kind of muse to them was right when she said there was probably someone out there to whom their music meant more than anything. 

But Hanako is writing under the shadow of death because she’s just turned 26 and is convinced she’s going to join the 27 club which means she has a very limited window to achieve her musical destiny. Perhaps in a way it’s a kind of quarter life crisis, or the sense of desperation that can be felt while young that time is already running out and you still haven’t made anything of your life. You still don’t know who you are or what you want to be and in Hanako’s case, no one has much faith her except her bandmates who stoically excuse their lack of audience under the rationale that everyone’s very busy these days and they should make sure to consult the calendar when they’re booking gigs. 

In fact, her manager’s the least supportive of all. He calls the band “rubbish” though casually admitting the may have forgotten to even release their album though it’s true that no one’s buying it. He’s the one that talks them into taking part in a government-backed scheme to encourage young people to move to the country in exchange for a stipend and place to live. But the weird thing is, unlike the indifference they felt in the city, the local community embrace their eccentricity and support their music even if they find it difficult to see what’s good about it. Despite describing the place where she lives as a “shithole”, the old lady listens patiently to Hanako’s tall tales about headlining Glastonbury while arranging gigs for them to play for such esteemed audiences as the local cows while bemused elderly resents look on stony faced but ultimately supportive. After all, as the old lady says, it’s a rare gift to create something so amazing that other people don’t understand it.

Though obsessed with horror films, darkness, and death, Hanako is strangely touched by country warmth and almost seems to tear up on the simple gift of a bunch of leeks after working in the fields. In a funny way, this village is actually quite like Glastonbury, a small rural settlement with a down-to-earth new age sensibility that suddenly erupts with music even if in this case on a much smaller scale. The old lady who becomes in a way a future echo of Hanako might be the most punk of all, joyfully living her little life in the shithole she’s never been outside of but welcoming these weird youngsters with patience, warmth, and acceptance which eventually allows Hanako to find a way back to herself and to art leading to a kind of rebirth in contrast to the death she was convinced was waiting for her. 

Of course, that all comes from a talking dog giving life advice through he medium of pithy quotes and song lyrics divined through automatic writing while practicing calligraphy. With frequent references to classic horror films, the film is an ode to the strangeness of country life but also its borderless horizons and sense of community solidarity alien to Hanako’s lonely life in Tokyo. But tellingly this is a paradise destined to be lost as the band finds success separating them from the environment that made them successful, fostering their art but also their souls with its gentle sense of acceptance. Often hilarious in its matter of factness, Kenichi Ugana’s anarchic dramedy has true punk spirit which is to say there’s nothing more punk rock than a good bowl of miso soup crafted with wholesome practicality and an altruistic desire for mutual happiness.

The Gesuidouz screens 30th November as part of this year’s London International Fantastic Film Festival (LIFFF)

Original trailer (English subtitles)

THE KILLER GOLDFISH (Yukihiko Tsutsumi, 2024)

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“Did the goldfish have a grudge against your husband?” It is a very strange question, but the policeman admits he has to ask it because he knows his contact at Public Security’s Extraordinary Unit will ask him if he asked. Goldfish aren’t something you’d ordinarily think of as dangerous, but perhaps they’re sick of being cooped up in tiny bowls, denied the whole ocean, so they’ve decided to fight back against humanity? Either that or, as Public Security agent Erika (Eriko Oka) suspects, someone is using them to exact a very particular kind of revenge.

Helmed by one of the premier directors of mainstream contemporary Japanese film, Yukihiko Tsutusmi’s The Killer Goldfish is not the schlockfest its name may suggest but a hark back to the anarchic conspiracy thrillers of the 90s. In fact, it’s produced by a director collective, Super Sapienss, of which Tsutsumi is a member alongside Katsuyuki Motohiro, best known for the Bayside Shakedown series, and Yuichi Sato (Kisaragi) which aims to shake off the inertia of the contemporary Japanese film industry by taking charge of the entire process so they can make the kind of films they want. 

You have to admit, it might be difficult to get a production committee to sign off on a such an outlandish series of events that only begins with murderous goldfish and eventually spins off into a far reaching conspiracy involving superhumans, psychic powers, neanderthal migration, missing high school students, a young woman who is somehow connected psychically with goldfishkind, and long-haired jizo that can stir up human appetites to the point of mass destruction. Erika has a feeling all of this is connected, but she doesn’t quite yet know how save that this world is apparently full of strange crimes to the extent that the powers that be are well aware of them but they prefer to keep quiet and let the Extraordinary Unit handle them.

In any case, the action proceeds X-Files style as Erika teams up with sceptical cop Yukine to try to solve the mystery and avoid any more fishy crimes in the future. This conspiracy is it seems located at the nexus of the primaeval and sophisticated, neanderthal rage delivered into the contemporary society in the opening scenes via our ubiquitous technology with a secret symbol broadcasting into the minds of those born to receive it. A professor digs up evidence that suggests early man arrived in Japan earlier than previously thought and is invited on a daytime talk show only to cause consternation with the obscene quality of his find, while further clues are bizarrely delivered through a love island-style reality dating show and its caddish heartthrob contestant. Making contact with the suspect eventually entails solving a riddle, messaging them on social media, and then completing an online questionnaire.

Nevertheless, these superhumans are apparently so because of their primaeval genetic makeup that places them outside of contemporary notions of civility. Their atavistic qualities render them, like the goldfish, constrained by the limitations of contemporary society from which they long to break free. Even so, their sensibilities seem to align with a problematic seem of historical nationalism that lends them an edge of danger aside from their potential connection to the unexplained goldfish murders which in themselves may indicate a rebellion against entrenched patriarchy given that they seem to target only middle-aged men. 

These ideas may be fleshed out more fully in the accompanying manga, also produced by Super Sapienss, or explained in the Chapter Two alluded to in the title card following the post-credit sequence but otherwise have an unconstrained, freewheeling quality rocketing between the primaeval past and the ultra modernity of reality television and social media conspiracy. The film makes frequent use of animation to express transformation or transportation between these worlds along with another that may exist in a less visible dimension, and has an unexpected freshness that belies Tsutsumi’s long career in the industry. The script by Hoarder on the Border director Takayuki Kayano similarly has an anarchic sensibility which is both retro and ultra-contemporary blending buddy cop procedural with zany horror comedy and an unfolding sense of unease in modern society. It’s fair to say that with The Killer Goldfish Super Sapienss has made good on its mission statement to disrupt the status quo of mainstream Japanese cinema with hopefully more to come in Chapter 2.

THE KILLER GOLDFISH screens 26th November as part of this year’s London International Fantastic Film Festival (LIFFF)

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Love After Love (第一炉香, Ann Hui, 2020)

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A naive young woman’s path from besotted teen to tortured yet masterful courtesan amid the colonial realities of pre-war Hong Kong is elegantly charted in Ann Hui’s stately adaptation of the novel by Eileen Chang, Love After Love (第一炉香, Dì yī lú xiāng). A slow-burn romantic tragedy, Hui’s floating drama at once reflects a sense of hopeless rootlessness and the ruinous intensity of a one-sided love but also the transgressive possibilities for freedom and independence in the rejection of traditional patriarchal social codes. 

Displaced from her native Shanghai by ongoing political tension, Weilong (Ma Sichun), the daughter of a once noble house, finds herself impoverished and left with the choice either of accompanying her family in returning to the Mainland where she will be set back a year in completing her studies or remaining behind alone in Hong Kong to graduate high school. Unable to support herself, she decides to turn to an estranged aunt she barely knows, throwing herself on her mercy and asking to be taken in even while knowing of the animosity which exists between her father and his sister. That would be because her aunt, Madame Liang (Faye Yu), turned down all the suitors her family found for her and chose instead to become the mistress of a wealthy man. He now having died, Madame Liang has inherited a sizeable fortune including a European-style mansion where she hosts society parties and enjoys a hedonistic lifestyle which has earned her a reputation as a seducer of young men. 

On her introduction to this world, one of the maids uncharitably describes Weilong’s entrance as like that of a new girl in a brothel and there is indeed something of that in her new role in the household, dangled like a bauble in front of Madame Liang’s collection of wealthy male associates, though Madame Liang apparently intends her only as decoration rather than gift. Tensions come to the fore as Weilong develops a fondness for a dashing young man, George (Edward Peng Yu-Yan), the mixed ethnicity son of coterie member Sir Cheng (Paul Chun), previously eyed by Madame Liang who understands much better than her naive niece that men like George are dangerous in their destabilising faithlessness. For Madame Liang, so perfectly in control, George may be manageable but as she later tells Weilong, unwisely goading her that her life of comfort is a failure because she will never find love, the only danger that exists to her is in unequal affection a prophecy that will in a sense come to pass in Weilong’s single-minded obsession to possess the heart of George. 

Weilong may describe Madame Liang’s lifestyle as ridiculous, yet as she points out her transgressive sexuality is also currency that permits the opulence and luxury in which she lives. Seduced by this world as much as by George, Weilong disapproves but admits that she is no longer the naive girl who arrived even if she also dislikes this new version of herself, considering a return to Shanghai and a possible reset to become someone else again presumably more in line with contemporary notions of social proprietary. She can’t deny that Madame Liang’s rejection of the patriarchal institution of marriage has granted her an unusual degree of independence otherwise unavailable in the contemporary society. She herself faces a choice in approaching the end of her high school days, either progressing to higher education, seeking work, or getting married naively insisting to Madame Liang that she will earn money in order to support George and his lavish lifestyle even as she advises her to enact a plot of romance as revenge. 

While Weilong’s discarded suitor benefits financially in becoming Madame Liang’s lover, she sponsoring his study abroad, Weilong again attempts to reverse traditional gender roles by trapping George as a kind of trophy husband. He had repeatedly told her he wasn’t the marrying kind, in part because of his insatiable sexual desire and perpetual loneliness in having lost his mother young, yet also because of his father’s perfectly acceptable yet socially destructive romantic history which includes several concubines and illegitimate children meaning there will be little in the way of inheritance. If he married, he’d need to marry well but Weilong’s family is impoverished and she has only her connection with Madame Liang to leverage. As she’d warned her it would be, the relationship between them will always be unhappy, Weilong winning a symbolic victory in coercing George towards marriage but unable to accept the limits of her control while he, paradoxically, is emotionally honest only with her but she can only see this as a slight as if he is so indifferent towards her that she is not worth lying to. 

As Weilong gradually morphs into her aunt, George’s sexually liberated sister Kitty lands on a different path later becoming a nun. The three women attempt to muster all of the advantages afforded to them under an oppressive patriarchal system but none perhaps find true happiness. It might be tempting to read a subversive comment on the nature of colonialism in the various frustrated love affairs and persistent sense of rootlessness, Hui’s drama is at heart a romantic tragedy in which two people become locked in a torturous relationship because they cannot understand each other. Their very idea of love is different. Doyle’s floating camera perfectly captures the fleeting opulence of this unreal society itself lingering on an abyss as the lovers continue to dance around each other looking perhaps for the love after love in immaterial comfort. 

Trailer (English subtitles)

Love in the Big City (대도시의 사랑법, E.oni, 2024)

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“How can being yourself be your weakness?” asks a young woman who, more than anything else, is defiantly herself, to a young man who indeed is anything but. The heroes of E.oni’s Love in the Big City (대도시의 사랑법, Daedosiui sarangbeop), adapted from the acclaimed novel by Park Sang-young, are in some ways on parallel journeys that somehow weave through and around each other as they each try to navigate an often hostile society that has no place either of them.

For aspiring writer and in the film’s early stretches student of French literature Heung-soo (Noh Sang-hyun), his “weakness” is that he’s gay and though he seems to have accepted this about himself is firmly in the closet. Free spirited Jae-hee (Kim Go-eun) who spent her teenage years abroad in France catches him making out with their professor but couldn’t care less though Heung-soo rebuffs her attempts at friendship fearing they’re akin to a kind of blackmail or that she plans to out him to their fellow students. It’s not until Jae-hee is publicly shamed when it’s rumoured a topless photo being shared online is of her that the pair finally become friends. Sick of the curious stares and covert giggles, she lifts her shirt in front of the class to prove it isn’t her, earning the nickname “crazy bitch”.

Her response is the exact opposite of Heung-soo. She claims her freedom by baring all, being defiantly herself and outwardly at least little caring for what others think of her while Heung-soo makes himself invisible and says nothing harbouring intense fear of being exposed. They are each in their way pariahs. Heung-soo because of his sexuality which is still unacceptable to many in the fiercely conformist society of South Korea in which Christian religious bodies still have huge influence and loudly oppose LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms. Heung-soo’s widowed mother is also intensely religious and having stumbled on one of his stories about a crush on a classmate is aware that he is gay but does not speak of it and continues to believe he will be “cured”. This is perhaps why she keeps urging him to do his military service believing it will make a man out of him.

For all of these reasons, it’s not surprising that Heung-soo is unwilling to live his life openly as a gay man because of the prejudice he knows he will face from those around him. Jae-hee, by contrast, refuses to hide and lives the way she wants to but is shamed by those who feel a woman should live in a certain way which is to say quietly, politely, and obediently. A man she thought was a boyfriend while he thought of her as a bit on the side publicly slut shames her and asks what sort of idiot would want to date a woman like her. Though we first meet her as a confident, rebellious student we see her gradually beaten down by the world around her and the demands of corporate culture. Considering marrying a man she may not actually like because it’s what you do, she stares sadly at a middle-aged woman opposite her on the train dressed in a near identical outfit and the comfortable shoes that are psychologically at least uncomfortable for Jae-hee in representing her capitulation to the properness of mainstream society. 

Her degradation continues to the extent that she finds herself in a relationship with a domineering, intensely patriarchal man who later turns violent when she tries to leave him. E often cross cuts and juxtaposes Heung-soo’s and Jae-hee’s experiences as they each suffer similar blows and indeed violence from a macho society if in different ways and for different reasons while having only their intense bond as fellow outsiders to rely on. This really is the love in the big city, a deeply felt platonic and unconditional love between two people who essentially have no one else. It’s through this love that each comes to love and accept themselves, Heung-soo eventually gaining the courage to fully embrace his authentic self while Jae-hee finally regains her independent spirit and refuses to let others shame her while standing up both for the LGBTQ+ community and the young woman she once was at the mercy of a male-dominated corporate culture. Warm and often funny, the film paints contemporary Seoul as an outwardly oppressive city of enforced conformity but equally discovers small pockets of freedom and joy along with the wholesome comfort of true friendship and self-acceptance.

Love in the Big City screened as part of this year’s London Korean Film Festival.

International trailer (English subtitles)

The Noisy Mansion (백수아파트, Lee Lu-da, 2024)

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Could the neighbourhood busybody actually be a force for good? The Noisy Mansion (백수아파트, Baeksu Apateu) at the centre of Lee Lu-da’s goodhearted comedy is a metaphor for the nation itself and also a kind of purgatorial space inhabited by the heroine as she attempts to repair herself by enforcing justice and improving the lives of others though it brings her no other real benefits. Some may brand her an inconvenient troublemaker, a nosy parker poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, but Geo-ul is really trying to do good if in an unconventional way.

It’s this tendency to rock the boat that’s finally started to annoy her brother Duon who fears her problematic do-gooding is going to have an adverse effect on his children while he is also fed up with fending off animosity from the neighbours regarding Geo-ul’s frequent attempts to police them. In many ways, this is a society in which minding your own business is considered a virtue and speaking up is a breach of social etiquette but then if nobody says anything, then nothing will ever change and those who abuse their power will be able to go on doing so unchallanged. 

Of course, Geo-ul’s determination to enforce justice it also her way of overcoming her sense of guilt and resentment towards a world in which a small mistake, the overlooking of something that should have been important, can have tragic consequences. She is quite literally haunted by what she feels was a lapse of responsibility, something she will never allow to happen again. Yet the apartment complex she moves into after her brother kicks her out assuming it will only be a matter of days before he asks her back is also a haunted space inhabited by lonely souls like herself who are being driven slowly mad by ominous banging noises at 4am. Geo-ul becomes determined to discover the culprit behind the maddening noise if only to vindicate herself in the eyes of her brother that she really can accomplish something through her busy-bodying.

But she finds herself at the nexus of the nation’s problematic capitalism as it becomes clear the banging is likely a tactic employed by gangsters trying to get people to move out so the building can be demolished. In fact, most of the units are empty and the building itself is in a possibly wilful state of disrepair which is why Geo-ul was able to move in so easily despite the discouragement of the estate agent who introduced her to it. The people she meets there are also all struggling with their own problems aside from those exacerbated by their exhaustion and while previous attempts to unite to oppose the plans for redevelopment had largely failed, her quest to unmask the noisy neighbour does indeed provoke a sense of solidarity in the community and the conviction that they really could change their circumstances if they work together.

As some say, the most dangerous person is one with too much time on their hands. What some might call nosy, Geo-ul might term taking an interest in her community. Though some may originally be irritated by her desire to root out injustice, they later come to respect her when she starts getting results. Aside from a sense of vindication, her actions have a positive effect on the community liberating the apartment block from the oppressive shadows haunting it which in this case would be corruption, organised crime, violence, and ultimately hopelessness. Above all else, Geo-ul’s dedication proves that it is possible to change the world, to restore peace, order and self-respect by exorcising the evil spirits of contemporary capitalism. The residents even get over Geo-ul’s status as a “renter” who has no place in their struggle as homeowners and affectionally refer to her as “captain” as she leads their accidental revolution. Filled with a cast zany characters and undercut with a sense of tragic melancholy, the film is an advocation for the power of community but also for the concerned citizen standing up for fairness and justice even when it has no real relevance or benefit to them personally and may actually do them harm but less so than living in an unfair society which allows tragedy to occur simply through indifference.

The Noisy Mansion screened as part of this year’s London Korean Film Festival.