It’s the countdown to the Raindance Film Festival and London Film Festival! Okay, it may sound like I’m jumping the gun but the festival is only two weeks away and I have been scheduling things like interviews!!! As I wait I watched lots of British television like the BBC mini-series Peaky Blinders (take a look at the review by Novroz) and the trashy comedy Bad Education. I’m surprised at how funny I am finding Bad Education this because it’s full of jokes I’d normally find dull, cheeky and cheap jokes and dodgy slapstick. Perhaps it reminds me of my school days in an comprehensive full of crazy people who weren’t all that witty either…
The week began with a post about the Japanese films at the Vancouver International Film
Festival. That was quickly followed up (literally the next day!) by a review for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s existential yakuza comedy Eyes of the Spider. The Kurosawa season continued with a review for a slasher film from 1992, The Guard From the Underground. The season will conclude next week with a review of License to Live. Now… If only I could find a reasonable affordable version of Charisma!
Sweet Whip 
Japanese Title: 甘い 鞭
Romaji: Amai Muchi
Release Date: September 21st, 2013
Running Time: 118 mins.
Director: Takashi Ishii
Writer: Takashi Ishii (Screenplay), Kei Oishi (Original Work)
Starring: Mitsu Dan, Yuki Mamiya, Tsuyoshi Nakano, Takashi Nakayama, Taro Suwa, Naoto Takenaka, Hiroko Nakajima
I’m here for the drama, not the whip wielding leather-clad Mitsu Dan, honest. Takashi Ishii (The Black Angel, Flower and Snake, Gonin) adapts Kei Oishi’s original novel for the big screen and casts gravure idol Mitsu Dan (Be My Slave – actual film title, not some perverted wish of mine) in a sexy role oozing with trauma.
Seventeen-year-old Naoko (Mamiya) was kidnapped when she as a freshman in high school. The kidnapper was her neighbour and she was tortured and abused for an entire month before she killed him and escaped. Thirty-one-year-old Naoko (Dan) has seemingly overcome her trauma and is now a fertility expert but she has a darker side… she is part of an S&M club…
Genkinahito 