Underwater Love - A Pink Musical (2011)

	Also Known As: Onna no kappa (original)
	Year of first release: 2011
	Director: Shinji Imaoka
	Actors: Sawa Masaki, Yoshirô Umezawa, Ai Narita
	Country: J, D
	Genre: Music, Drama, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 12.12.2015, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: 35-year old Asuka (Masaki), working in a fish factory, is about to marry her boss when she meets a mythical Kappa (Umezawa), creature of the swamps who actually used to be a boy she knew in high school before he died.
Review: In the category of weird Japanese movies it is difficult to find weirder. I had seen this one at the Udine Far East Film Festival in 2011 and recently bought this nice DVD edition that also contains the original soundtrack by the German band Stereo Total, one of the interested of the this movie. Another interest is the presence in the crew of cinematographer Christopher Boyle known for his work on Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love, 2046 but also Hero and Lady in the Water. Those particularities make this Pinku noticeable. What is Pinku you ask? I learned that it is a whole genre of Japanese cinema, that can be best described as erotico-dramatic. In the few such movies I have seen, there is indeed a mandatory simulated sex scene every ten minutes in the middle of an otherwise serious and half-well-acted story. I remember in particular The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai in which some girl finds the thumb of George W. Bush, having thus control over the US nuclear arsenal! I let you guess where the thumb ends up. Back to Underwater Love: the movie looks very cheap (the Kappa outfit!) and the actors amateurish, but if you are into a different kind of cinema then you can appreciate the offbeat humour (the God of Death!), the sex scenes nobody would otherwise dare to show in a cinema movie, and my favorite part: the dance and songs.
Rating: 5 /10