Anxious Virgin: One More Time, I Love You

High school boy Hideki is killed in a traffic accident but sent back to Earth so that he can lose his virginity. To his dismay, he is reincarnated in the body of schoolgirl Mari. He soon realises that being a girl allows him to enter locker rooms and ogle Mari’s older sister.

What’s more, Mari’s best friend is the cute Sachiko. Throwing caution to the wind, Hideki tries to get closer to Sachiko while still in Mari’s body, but he is helpless when she takes a shine to Hideki’s old swim club rival, a notorious playboy with less than honourable intentions.

This Japanese adolescent equivalent of Heaven Can Wait will appeal to those nostalgic for the body swap and teen sex comedies so common of the video rental era. Former Nikkatsu Roman Porno director Shun Nakahara brings far more nuance and restraint than one might expect, giving the film a cute charm that is in no small part thanks to the casting of rising idol Shinobu Nakayama (later Jet Li’s co-star in the Hong Kong-made Fist of Legend).

In spite of the salacious shenanigans, it’s hard not to see this as a warm-up for director Shun Nakahara’s next film, The Cherry Orchard, about teenage crushes in the wings of a high school production of Anton Chekhov’s play – a film that would win every major domestic film prize.

– Tom Mes

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