Shoujyo
Shoujyo
Winner of Best Film and Actress awards at festivals ranging from Paris, Helsinki and Venice to Montreal and AFI this bright and twisted Japanese love story mixes tattoos, eroticism and comedy through the eyes of a 17-year old girl’s infatuation with the local policeman..
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NOT AVAILABLE ON DEMAND
OFFICIAL TRAILER
SYNOPSIS
Winner of Best Film and Actress awards at festivals ranging from Paris, Helsinki and Venice to Montreal and AFI this bright and twisted Japanese love story mixes tattoos, eroticism and comedy through the eyes of a 17-year old girl’s infatuation with the local policeman. The story follows Tomokawa, a notoriously lazy policeman who spends most of his time teasing his intellectually – challenged friend Sukemasa or having affairs with married women. One day while hanging out at a bar, he is approached by 17-year old Yoko and soon a relationship forms. Yoko, it turns out, is Sukemasa’s sister; and both are the children of his old flame Yukie, a cruel woman. Tomokawa soon takes both teens under his wing, protecting them from their heartless mother, but will this relationship last in the face of social disapproval?
TECH SPECS
Runtime: 122 minutes
Format: 2:35 (35MM)
Sound: Ultra Stereo
Rating: NR
Genre: Foreign, Drama, Sexy
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
CAST & CREW
Directed by: Eiji Okuda
Starring: Mayu Ozawa, Eiji Okuda, Akira Shoji, Mari Natsuki & Hideo Murota
AWARDS, FESTIVALS, PUBLICITY
Best Picture — AFI Film Festival
Grand Prize — Paris Film Festival
Best Actress — Thessalonski Film Festival
Golden Bear — Moscow Film Festival
Special Mention — Bermuda Film Festival
Official Selection — Boston Film Festival
“Barking mad. Sumptuous fun mixed with erotic adventure.”
Toronto Sun
“The lover’s passion is movingly evoked (particularly in Ms. Ozawa’s emotionally raw performance as the needy teenager)…”
Dana Stevens, NY Times
“…something completely different in the way of romantic comedy: Shoujyo is funny, weirdly sweet, culturally opaque and highly entertaining.”
Time Out Chicago
“Warm, funny and delightful.”
Plume Noire Paris
(*** ½ ) “…unabashed wit and crystalline style. Twisted romance…”
Chicago Tribune
“Okuda makes for a gloriously bad lieutenant, while Ozawa is enjoyably discomfiting in her unblushing carnality.”
Drew Tillman, Village Voice
“…well photographed and acted. Director and star Eiji Okuda has created almost a gentle story, with definite humanity…”
G. Allen Johnson, SF Chronicle
“My Pick of the Week. Asian-cinephiles rejoice, the theaters at Dole Cannery are getting Eiji Okuda’s lauded art house film Shoujyo.”
Ryan Senega, Honolulu Weekly
“At its core, the film is strong and involving, Narushima and Manabe’s script (from a novel by Mikihiko Renjo) has a stubborn, persistent and honest quality, and those willing to sit through the film to its end will be rewarded by the sense that the couple’s acquired wisdom and understanding have been hard-won.”
Kevin Thomas, LA Times
“…Shoujyo, which is in many ways an affecting movie…there is real human drama here, including one character who truly grows.”
Melissa Levine, SF Weekly
“A description of the story — doesn’t convey any sense of the modest, muted pleasures the film has to offer. Okuda creates that slightly surreal atmosphere of ghost-town emptiness that will be familiar to fans of Takeshi Miike, but he infuses it with a romantic’s sense of deep yearning.”
Mark Olsen, LA Weekly
