The Pig's Retribution

Sai’s second Okinawan film takes place largely on a small island called Maja-jima. The virginal 19-year-old Shokichi is there to collect the bones of his father Shoji, a man he never knew, which have been left to bleach in the sun at the foot of the cliff where the sea washed them up. But Shokichi is accompanied by three hookers who take the trip as a vacation - at least, until they all go down with food poisoning, probably from eating bad pig’s liver. Pigs loom as large in the story as they do in Okinawan mythology, which holds that pigs have the power to steal human souls. Without belabouring any political points, Sai gleefully plunges into everything that makes Okinawan culture distinct and unique. Shokichi’s education sentimentale turns out to be more about discovering his ancestry than about sexual initiation; the film is sexy, funny and sad in equal measure.