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Beautiful Lure – A Modern Tale of Painted Skin
Japan 2021
produced by Icuco Miura, Hidetoshi Momiyama, Yoichi Utebi, Ryuho Okawa (executive) for KOGA Productions, Happy Science/Nikkatsu
directed by Hiroshi Akabane
starring Nao Hasegawa, Ryoma Ichihara, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Yoshimi Ashikawa, Moro Morooka, Miho Yabe, Masaru Shonozuka, Kiyotaka Uji, Yoshiko Sengen, Ryota Nakashini, Masayuki Suzuki, David Ito, Takayasu Komiya, Atsushi Fukazawa, Aya Sugimoto, Ryo Aoki, Ren Matsuoka, Mirai Irako, Kanon Nishishita, Riko Fukazawa, Satoshi Izumi, Kenji Fukuda, Mutsuki Bando, Ryo Iwata, Yoshiki Tano, Rina Narita, Mitsuyasu Konishi, Momoka Tachibana, Mei Yamagishi, Rin Kijima, Tomoya Naito, Yuki Takato, Yusuke Sasaki, Nobuyuki Kase, Sayaka Mochizuki, Noa Nagayama, Tatsuo Endo, Yoshihiko Takeoka, Miwa Murai
story by Ryuho Okawa, screenplay by Sayaka Okawa, music by Yuichi Mizusawa
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Maiko (Nao
Hasegawa), a young woman as beautiful as she's intelligent,
has the ambition to make it to the absolute top - and to that end, she
works both at a bank and as hostess at Minako's (Miho Yabe) club, and she
really excels as both. And of course, in both positions she only meets the
best society has to offer - as in, perfect marrying material. For a time,
she has a romance going with Yuya (Kiyotaka Uji), son of a rich
industrialist (Masaru Shonozuka), but she ditches him when she meets Taro
(Ryoma
Ichihara), son of former prime minister Shiomura (Toshiyuki
Nagashima) and political hopeful, who falls madly in love
with her, but refuses to commit to marriage. However, Maiko isn't only
beautiful and intelligent, she's also clever and cunning, and really
manipulates him into proposing to her, even if that involves kissing him
in front of paparazzi cameras. Meanwhile, Yuya can't accept her ditching
him, so much so that he at one time attacks her violently - too soon
enough turn up dead. In the meantime, Taro, while being honestly in love
with her, can't shake the feeling that something isn't quite right with
her, like she can't enter certain shrines and the like, so he consults his
spiritual leader Katsuko (Yoshimi
Ashikawa), and before long she finds out that Maiko's
actually possessed by a youma, an evil deity hell-bent on destroying the
country. Thing is, the youma can only be exorcised at their wedding ...
A quite interesting movie that rolls quite a bit of satire and
social commentary into a modern fairy tale and thus mixes the world of
finance with the world of magic and demons, in a pretty entertaining
fashion. And the often somewhat stilted dialogue only helps to give the
film that's mostly settled in "our reality" a suitably
otherworldly flair, while the direction sell-assuredly goes for beautiful
pictures, to when the time is right reveal them as (too) perfect facades.
And given how the movie progressed beforehands, the finale is set to both
surprise and highly entertain one.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
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