There is an age old Japanese culture of female entertainment provided to men, in some guise it features in alot of oriental films. This follows one of the girls who's life is taken over by this. We meet Aoi in a bar, she is a 17 year old escort, sat with men who are discussing how crazy Okinawa is for having these accessible young women. When she leaves the bar it is daylight, she picks up her infant son on her way home, where her wastrel boyfriend Masaya is enjoying one in doubtless a long line of lazy mornings. Mounting money pressures cause aggression at home, much of which is physical. Before long she has become lost in a city that she calls home.
Aoi's life becomes increasingly dangerous when the idea of the sex trade is floated with the promise of double her usual pay. From this point she suffers some inevitable setbacks as the film's bleakness begins to takeover and unfortunately can become slightly stifling for the average viewer. The set up is well paced and takes the time to transpose us into her world. The second half, although arguably a quicker pace, felt less fluent, more drawn out and slightly stretched.
The film is violent and dark, and on the whole very well made with good performances - interestingly, although Aoi is clearly the more innocent party, I wasn't overly sympathetic towards her. This is one of those films where the characters all have at least an element of darkness to their personalities and arcs - which i like. Nice camera work and well chosen music make for powerful scenes of the girls navigating the back streets of the city at all hours - of which there are a few scenes. It reminded me in moments of Lady Vengeance and one of my favourite oriental films The Chaser, which manages to use the darkness fully to it's advantage to make it as memorable as it can be.
4 out of 5
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