I saw Love Exposure (愛のむきだし) last night, and despite the nearly 4-hr running time — yes, the film is EPIC — it did never seem uninteresting. Yes, it actually felt like 2 or 3 films into 1, yet somehow… it didn’t bother me. It was highly entertaining… in a very dark and sick kind of way.
I mean, it can only be Japanese.
Ai no Mukidashi tells the story of Yu Tsunoda, a boy growing up in a very Christian family. Suddenly his mother dies, but before she does… he promises to introduce his Maria to his mom when he meets her. With the death of his mother, his father decides to become a priest, until he meets with a woman in church who has decided to become a Christian herself. She is baptized, and when she does her first session at the confessional, she tells Father Tsunoda that she is in love with him.
At first, Father Tsunoda refuses but in the end gives into this woman, and begins having an affair with her while still giving sermons at church. Three months later, the woman in question seems bored of him, and is tired of sneaking around as the priest doesn’t show signs of quitting priesthood, so she leaves him which turns Father Tsunoda into a pessimist who gives sermons about doom and destruction.
This also makes his relationship with his son Yu difficult, as Father Tsunoda gets a sick satisfaction from hearing his son confessing his daily sins, whom in turns has been looking for better and scandalous sins to commit in order to please his dad. His major sin-accomplishment is becoming a panties-photo-snapping-on-the-street perv.
That’s a whole movie all on itself, then there’s the part where he meets the most perfect panties, falls in love/lust, there’s a lot of killing, girl-on-girl action, girl-on-drag fantasy… etc, etc and… then there’s crazy women.
Or… I mean, crazy girl.
Psychotic women… sociopaths~~ it’s all about the crazy… and not only because they’re unstable. They are scary because they coolly kill people or get people killed, and they show no remorse.
It is so sick… but highly entertaining.
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