Linda Linda Linda

Linda Linda Linda is Yamashita Nobuhiro's biggest box-office success to date. He previously chronicled the Japanese recession and made slacker masterpieces such as Hazy Life (Tiger Awards Competition 2000) and The Ramblers. In this case, his dry wit helps him make a hormonally-correct, charming and eventually gripping variation on the slightly tired genre of films in which a gang of secondary-school students has to overcome obstacles before excelling. It starts when a music contest is imminent at the Shibazaki School and a band falls apart. They blame it on `a difference of opinion about their creative direction'. Co-founder Kei decides on the spot to ask the female Korean exchange student Son to be their vocalist (played by the stunning Bae Doo-Na, who was previously seen in Barking Dogs Never Bite and Take Care Of My Cat). Son does not know the songs they are going to play, by the Japanese punk/pop band The Blue Hearts from the 1980s. On top of that, she can't even speak Japanese and they only have three more days before the contest. The band will eventually have the house rocking - entirely in keeping with the rules of the genre - with the irresistible hit from which the film borrows its title. But before we get that far, Yamashita clearly shows the amalgamation of rivalries and loves, misunderstandings and giggling fits, shyness and recklessness and - in retrospect - evokes a distinct nostalgia for secondary school days. Alongside the romance, we can also enjoy a beautiful score by James Iha, former guitarist of the Smashing Pumpkins. (GT)