Oshinari Shugo ( Battle Royale II, Aoi Haru) gives a compelling performance as Hoshino.
#ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU CHOU CAM MOVIE#
While Iwai's masterful direction, inventive storytelling and intricately complicated script makes the movie an interesting experience, it is the superb performances from the young cast that are indeed the standout. Like those movies, Iwai's film portrays adolescent life as being very unforgiving to some - especially those who seem weaker and/or different. However, Hoshino ultimately gets his comeuppance in a surprising way.Īll About Lily Chou-Chou shares a lot of its dark tone with Larry Clark's controversial Kids and similarly themed Bully movies. He arranges to have honor student and piano protégé Kuno Yoko (Ito Ayumi) raped at his father's abandoned factory, and coerces another student, Tsuda Shiori (Aoi Yu), into enjo kosai (arranged dating for money). Nihilistic and coldly indifferent to life he soon orchestrates a number ofĬruel and humiliating acts on fellow classmates. However, after a near drowning incident and witnessing the suicide attempt of a fellow friendly traveler, he becomes a completely different person. Stealing money from an attempted mugging incident, Hoshino decides to go on a trip to Okinawa with Hasumi and other friends in an attempt to find some sort of spiritual awakening. While he is blessed with a relatively happy home life, a pampering young mother (played by the fetching Inamori Izumi), a good reputation at school, and an active social life with the school's Kendo club, he still can't seem to find much happiness. We also come to know more about Hoshino's life. He also suffers the trauma of having his beloved Lily CD destroyed by the bullies. Hasumi is called out by Hoshino and then humiliated and forced to masturbate in public by Hoshino's older friends. Yet this happiness soon gives way to a number of hardships. Lily's music touches Hasumi in a way that nothing has before and his now hopeless life begins to take on some meaning, as he develops an almost religious devotion to her music. Impressionist composer Achille-Claude Debussy and flamboyant Icelandic singer Bjork are named as kindred spirits). Enamored by the poster, he takes it home with him and quickly discovers the singer's website "Lilyholic", a site devoted to the singer and her eclectic brand of "etheral" music (French It is at this pawnshop that Hasumi encounters a billboard poster publicizing one of Lily Chou-Chou's CD albums. Their aimless and mischevious days are spent committing various acts of petty theft, often instigated by Hoshino (they steal some company bonds from a sleeping old man and shoplift some CDs from a bookstore to sell back to a local pawnshop). While the title suggests a film detailing the life of the movie's enigmatic and ethereal fictional songstress Lily (singer Salya), the film's actual focus is on childhood friends Shusuke Hoshino (Oshinari Shugo) and Yuichi Hasumi (Ichihara Hayato), junior high school classmates in the Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture.
#ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU CHOU CAM TV#
In recent years schools have tried to take a more aggressive stance on the problem and recent TV J-Doramas, like the powerful Watashi Tachi No Kyokashou and Life, have also attempted to bring awareness to the issue beyond the classroom.ĭirector Iwai Shunji tackles this sensitive subject in his thought-provoking 2001 film Lily Chou-Chou No Subete (a.k.a. Every year, there are cases of Japanese teens taking their own lives rather than face daily persecution from their classmates and tormentors involving everything from physical and emotional abuse, to the extortion of money, public humiliation and harassment, and even death threats via cellphone or computer email (texting messages like "shine/die" Nowhere is that more apparent than in Japan, where cases of ijime (bullying) have been extreme and notorious. Much debate ensued regarding not only the current state of the youth culture in America but the increasing escalation of teen violence and instances of aggressive bullying - particularly "cyber bullying". When recent footage of Florida teen Victoria Lindsay being attacked by classmates in her home was posted on YouTube, it generated overwhelming public outrage and condemnation. While the film's hard look at the issues of apathy, teen aggression, obsession and nihilism are indeed compelling, the powerful performances from Iwai's talented and youthful cast make this film an absolute must-see. Sometimes bleak picture of Japanese youth culture. Iwai Shunji's haunting and emotionally charged social drama paints a dark and Hayato Ichihara, Shugo Oshinari, Ayumi Ito, Takao Osawa, Miwako Ichikawa, Izumi Inamori, Yu Aoi Hasumi (Hayato Ichihara) finds comforting solace in the music of "ethereal girl",Įnigmatic and mysterious musician Lily Chou-Chou in Shunji Iwai's haunting All About Lily Chou-Chou.
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