August 2013 saw the premiere of a live-action “Yuri” movie. Called Schoolgirl Complex – Hosoubuhen (スクールガール・コンプレックス~放送部篇), my first and last thought about it was “Well that looks like a Story A.” I have now had a chance to watch it. Here is a transcript of my live-tweeting the first half:

– The movie Schoolgirl Complex has the same cameraman as Sakura Trick. Makes me want to punch someone.

– The problem with this otaku gaze is that it robs the story of any sincerity, turning it into the lamest porn ever bcs there’s no sex.

– So you have girls pulling up socks sllooooowwwwly, not just yanking them up like actual people do.

– It’s so insincere and immature, the live-action film version of chortling over National Geographics 80 years ago.

– One can be an otaku or a fujyoshi without being an immature creep. But the media does not reflect that.

– Buchou is such a wet rag, how did she become the club president?

– Now we’re having a clip episode of the last 23 minutes of the movie! No *wonder* this thing is 95 minutes long!

– Oh, oh, oh! I know what this movie reminds me of! The Live-action Blue: Only not *quite* as bereft and more pervy.

– Every scene is about  90 seconds long, like they are filming an eternal set of trailers.

Then, a scene happened that had me laughing so hard, I forgot to keep tweeting. So let me back up and synopsize.

Chiyuki is a new member of the Broadcasting Club at a girls’ school and during one summer, her and the club president’s feelings for each other threaten to tear the club up. A club member, Kazumi, sees Chiyuki as a problem and tries to throw her out, but Manami, the club president is captivated by her. Another member, Ai has feelings for Manami. During the school festival, Chiyuki goes off with a guy she does not feel she can leave and the Broadcasting Club does its audio play without her. In the middle of the broadcast, Ai breaks down and confesses to Manami, and sort of cutely, the audience is on her side, but she rejects their help. It was an interesting exploration of not adhering to Aristotelian principles of dramatic unity.

Ultimately, with Chiuyki gone, the Broadcasting club continues on.

The scene which had me hysterical comes about 2/3 of the way through. Chiyuki and Manami are being filmed and Ai oozes out a window in the creepiest and funniest manner possible. The look on Chiyuki’s and Manami’s faces were priceless. “What are you doing Ai…?” Manami asks…. It was very The Ring-esque, but also out of nowhere in a movie that had, until that moment, shown no humor whatsoever. As a result it was jarring, if funny.

Other than this one scene, there was nothing honest about the entire movie. We’re thrown into the middle of the sexual tension between Chiyuki and Manami, forced to stare with the creepiest of creepy male gaze at girls who would not be staring at each other that way and generally cast in  the role of pervy voyeur, instead of watching a story of a girls’ school version of Summer Vacation 1999. I was deeply disappointed in the first half of the film, which was a waste of a good opportunity to tell a basic story with any sincerity. It’s not until Ai becomes the focus that it has any heart at all.

The extra is a lengthy combined “making of” and messages from the actresses. They all did their best, with what could have been a much better movie with even a little effort.

Ratings:

Overall – 5

When I finished this series, my wife asked me – as she so often does, “Was it good?” Dissolved in laughter on the couch, I squeaked out “It was great!” She stopped doing what she was doing and said “Really?” To which I replied, still laughing so hard I was crying, “No, it was *dreadful*!”

I tell you this now, because if you really liked Shiroyuki Gakuen/Innocent Lilies, you’ll want to understand that I did not “like” it as such, but found it to be highly amusing. ^_^

The story begins with Moga, a young woman who enters an exclusive private school (vaguely Catholic school-ish in style, but with no actual religious imagery,) after her younger sister apparently took her own life. Note, I say “apparently”. Moga meets and befriends the other newbies in the school. We learn that they are all there to become a White Witch…for which they will have to undergo hard training and endure pain and suffering. Their three creepy upperclassman are cruel in a totally not really-cruel-at-all way and the girls chew up the scenes with their overacting with pain and suffering.

It turns out that, in fact, only one of them can truly become a White Witch, and to do that, she will have to increase her emotional wounds by killing the others! Oh Noes!

Then stuff happens, there’s lots of tears and deaths and more stuff and Moga becomes a White Witch. Amazing, right? ^_^ Who’dathunk it? But it turns out there’s a final boss and if you think about it for a second you’ll guess who it is.

The service is a checklist of skanky things, which makes the whole series a tad cringe-making, from bust and butt shots to milk bukkake, with long lingering moments for the service. It makes me sad that this is not done ironically, but very, very seriously so it’s important to someone, somewhere.

The cinematography is excruciating, with tons of lens flares and nauseating use of in-and-out-of-focus constantly, but since the whole thing feels utterly low budget, it’s perfectly okay. The fight choreography is shockingly decent considering everything. The script is, of course, B-movie bad, but I really think that was done on purpose and the actresses, members of the otaku idol group Denpagumi, do their very best to overact it just perfectly. And the s/fx are really quite good, but there’s kind of no excuse anymore for bad s/fx, even with low budgets.

There is Yuri-service and even a quite sincere kiss late in the series, but don’t expect Yuri to equal good things. Yuri is just another in the list of “service” along with school-assigned negligees, milk baths and bathing suits.

Overall, Innocent Lilies is a slightly painful, slightly hysterically funny, all awkward live action fantasy series. I’m a little worried that I might actually be the target audience for this kind of thing, but then again, if I were, we would have way more fighting and way less service. Phew. ^_^;

Innocent Lillies is available free, legally on Viki.com. The translations are crowdsourced – Episode 1 is up to 21 languages, which I have to admit, amazes me. Good on you, creepy fans of the world.  ^_^

Ratings:

Story – 6 Hee hee hee
Characters – 6 Awkwardly conceived and acted, but kind of likable anyway
Acting – All the hallmarks of 25 year olds pretending to be 14, but they did their best
Cinematography – 5 Enough with the out of focus and cut-scenes
Yuri – 3
Service – 10

Overall – 6

I can’t say I hated it, and I’m laughing just thinking about it, but I can’t say it’s good. “2chan bad” is my best description of it.

I just learned that Denpagumi will be performing at KawaiiFest in Harajuku. Gosh, I hope I get to see them.

I don’t do Sunday afternoons well.  Have I ever mentioned that? “Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul” comes close to how hopelessly awful I feel every Sunday afternoon is by sheer dint of it being Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoons find me flipping aimlessly through websites, TV shows, social media, books and DVDs looking for something to draw my attention. Yesterday, for some reason, re-runs of Bulletproof Monk weren’t doing it for me (thanks for trying, Showtime) and there was no rugby to be had. When I used my magic powers to turn up some entertainment, what rose to the top of the pile was the 2008 remake of  the live-action movie based on Yoshida Akimi’s manga Sakura no Sono, (which was reviewed here on Okazu by Yuri no Boke’s Katherine H in 2011.)

I hit “play” expecting to be unmoved. Well I couldn’t have been wronger. The movie is sort of a nod to the manga and to the 1990 movie, without letting them get in the way.

Yuki Momo (played by Fukuda Saki) is a concert violinist in training and she is clearly very good. But not good enough according to her teacher – and her attitude (which appears to be that she enjoys playing) has to be crushed immediately. So the teacher tells her she’s a failure and ought to just quit. So, Momo quits.

Momo’s older sister Anzu (who is getting married shortly, like Atsuko’s sister in the manga) and their parents pull strings to get Momo into Ouka Girl’s Academy, a stuffy old institution with ridiculous rules and traditions. Momo is less than enthused and starts to get a reputation immediately. She’s reluctantly shown around by class rep Akaboshi (Terashima Saki), who is apparently stuffy herself, but Momo can see that she’s crushing on the school prince, tall, athletic Ogasawara Aoi (Anne Watanabe.)

When Momo sneaks into the old schoolhouse (which is scheduled to  be destroyed,) she comes across a script for a play version of Chekov’s “The Cherry Orchard” adapted by her teacher, Ms. Sakano. When she asks about it, Ms. Sakano says that it was never performed, and that the school will never let it be. Of course we find out why – a girl in the drama club became pregnant and killed herself. The play was banned, but the rest of the drama club went on strike and blocked themselves in a room in the school to get the school to let them perform the play. The head of the drama club at the time was Ms. Sakano, and Momo’s sister Anzu was in the club.

But now Momo finds herself in the role of director of the play, with a cast of schoolmates who want to try, at least. Aoi is taking the lead female role to embrace her feminine side. But when a girl in the club fears she’s become pregnant, she lies about going to the hospital to her father, instead telling him she was practicing for the play. He calls the school and the jig is up.

The Vice-Principal confronts Momo, banning the play and threatening any girl who performs with rejection from the junior college. Momo has a great line about the banning of the play having *nothing* to do with the play, and how the traditions of the school are more important than the students. The Vice-Principal counters with a good line of her own – that the school’s traditions are not created by the students and if they do not wish to follow the school rules, they are welcome to take the school uniform off and leave.

The play is forbidden by the Vice Principal, but the girls sneak together off campus to practice anyway. When Sakano-sensei discovers them, she becomes their coach and they decide they’ll perform it off campus. The scene where they all agree to do it anyway was great – each actress quoting lines from the play, partially out of context, but not entirely. The words were applicable, if not really meant that way.

Once again the school learns of the play and this time Ms. Sakano argues for the performance. The Vice-Principal agrees, but demands that it be performed on campus, at the school anniversary. We learn that she was the Drama Club advisor 11 years ago.

The movie comes to an end as the girls head off to perform The Cherry Orchard.

This movie was a massive modernization of the original story. The girls are thoroughly 21st century. The idea that Midori may be pregnant is not shocking, but worrying. Momo does not have a boyfriend, but in the first scene, she plays after a young man on violin at the trial, and later meets him playing sax on the street. He says he’s given up violin because he never could be as good as her. He keeps in touch with her and invites her to see his band. This was a great scene, as she helps him with his song and the singer, Rimi (played by Ueto Aya) gives her a thumbs up. She gets some positive reinforcement and later Shu asks her to join the band – and him – in Tokyo. Momo thanks him but says no. She’s decided to graduate from Ouka, and then decide what she’ll do with herself. I loved how this scene held no pressure for Momo, nor promise of a dream, just a possibility she was at leisure to pursue.

Yuri? Yes. When Anzu brings Momo to the school, Anzu sees Sakano-sensei and runs up to her, immediately casting herself in the position of underclassman with a huge crush. It was a nice bit of acting. Later, in a somewhat less well-acted bit, Anzu tells Momo that her feelings were love. “I would have left school for her.” But it was never to be. When Anzu comes to the school for the play, she and Kayo have a moment in the old school building, where they talk about the past. The scene really stood out as it was played by the both of them as if they were on a stage. Each step was scripted for the audience –  not natural at all. Then the girls all come in, bouncy energy and natural motion, and the moment is gone. It was touches like that that really made the movie work for me.

In the final moments before the end of the movie, Aoi discovers Akaboshi, nervous, alone, and withdrawing. Aoi reaches out and draws her into a gentle embrace. “A charm to relax you,” she says, and Akaboshi holds her and relaxes. Momo sees this, smiling gently for them and only interrupts when she is forced to by the others approaching.

There is one final gag, which was ridiculous, but it helped the movie end on a non-allegorical note, which I appreciated. ^_^

Ratings:

Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 3
Service – 1 on principle
Cinematography – 7 No lingering fetishy shots of landscape, sakura as symbol or fleeting maidenhood or any other gag-making allegory. Clear, clean shots that complimented the generally excellent acting.

Overall – 9

As I said, I had no expectations from this movie – if anything, I expected it to be kind of sucky, but I enjoyed every moment of it. It made my Sunday afternoon fly by!

Today is a “something completely different” kind of day. Yesterday, I watched a movie so special that I wanted to tell you about it right away. Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh is like everything you’ve ever seen, only better. ^_^

Ada is a transsexual living in Manila. After her boyfriend takes her money and dumps her, she decides to move to a small town to leave her bad memories behind. With her best friend Didi and her her niece Aruba she opens up a salon, where she tries very hard to not fall for the local hunk, Dodong.

And then she’s hit in the head with a pink meteorite. Didi convinces her to swallow it to gain power (she saw it in a comic book) so Ada does…and transforms into the superheroine Zaturnnah, played wonderfully by Zsa Zsa Padillah, who matches her body language to Ada’s and boy can she sing!

Did I mention this was a musical? Oh yes. It is.

Ada is played by BB Gandanghari – formerly known as Rustom Padilla, a hunky lead actor who, in 2009, came out as transsexual and changed her name. She’s utterly fantastic in every way as Ada. Sensibly, Ada wants to avoid having her heart broken again, and  is convinced that Dodong is only in love with Zaturnnah. In the meantime, as Zaturnnah, she’s busy saving her village from threats like giant frogs, zombies and aliens.

The movie was fun and all, right up to the aliens, where it was catapulted into my personal list of “thank the gods I am alive to see this.” The alien queen, Queen Femina, is obviously a Psychotic Lesbian – with a properly tragic backstory. She and her Amazonistas were…I’m running out of superlatives for this movie. Let’s just say if they made figurines of Queeen Femina and her Amazonistas, I would *so* own them.

Didi is a perfect sidekick – she reads comics, so she *gets* what it’s all about and makes sure Zaturnnah has a suitable costume (and one for herself.) Plus she’s got “comedic sidekick” written all over her. She’s a frickin’ hoot.

You’re probably wondering if Ada and Dodong get together. Of course they do (!) and it was an adorable end scene, with all the townspeople singing and dancing and fireworks and flowers and hearts everywhere. Totally “Awwwwwww….”

I found you the full trailer. Watch and enjoy.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

This movie is, apparently, based on a wildly popular Filipino graphic novel of the same name (which looks spectacular, too.) If any of my readers from the Phillipines have read it, please let us know how it is!

Many, many thanks to Donna for finding this. You are the Master of movies. I loved it. ^_^