Roishin is an unpleasant sort. He chats up young women, puts something in their drinks and then sells them on to pimps. He’s a perverted little gangster, that Roishin, played by filmmaker Okuda Yosuke himself. One day he falls into the trap of a man who traffics women. He finds a woman in his home and trades her, but it turns out that the woman belonged to the Yakuza boss Hideo. Now he has to pay a huge debt to Hideo.
Okuda is obviously a lover of old Yakuza films – as shown by his Tiger competition film Tokyo Playboy Club (IFFR 2012). But he also gives his films his own hallmark. The stylised violence of the genre films is more unpleasant and real here. Reports about how realistic that violence was spread from the set through Japan by Twitter. There’s one scene in which Roishi breaks a bottle on his forehead and what we see is not make-up or digital effect. Okuda is obviously a filmmaker who is willing to sacrifice a lot to make his films a success.
Film details
- Country of production
- Japan
- Year
- 2015
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2016
- Length
- 141'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
