is a 2008
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
comedy-drama film
Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...
written and directed by
Sion Sono
Sion may refer to
* an alternative transliteration of Zion
People
* Sion (name) or Siôn, a Welsh and other given name and surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Shion or Sion, a Japanese given name
Plac ...
. The film gained a considerable amount of notoriety in film festivals around the world for its four-hour runtime and themes including love, family, lust, religion and the crime of
upskirt
Upskirting or upskirt photography is the practice of taking nonconsensual photographs under a person's skirt or kilt, capturing an image of the crotch area, underwear, and sometimes genitalia. An "upskirt" is a photograph, video, or illustrati ...
photography. The first version was originally six hours long, but was trimmed at the request of the producers.
Following its release, it won many awards and received acclaim from critics. At the
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
, it won the Caligari Film Award and the
FIPRESCI Prize
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...
.
[
]
Plot
Yū Honda is a young teenager Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
attempting to live his life faithfully. His father, Tetsu, has become a devout Catholic priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
following the death of Yū's mother and operates his own church. Tetsu asks Yū to confess
A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information th ...
his sins, but Yū believes he is a good person who has little to confess. To appease his father, he makes up sins but his father sees right through him so Yū becomes obsessed with committing real sins. Yū befriends other boys and is taught to steal, fight, and take stealth photographs up women's skirts. Yū promptly becomes a skilled "panty shot" photographer. Though perceived as a pervert
Perversion is a form of human behavior which deviates from what is considered to be orthodox or normal. Although the term ''perversion'' can refer to a variety of forms of deviation, it is most often used to describe sexual behaviors that are co ...
, he is never aroused by these photographs.
After Yū loses a bet with his friends, he agrees to go into the city dressed as a woman and kiss a girl he likes. When they go into the city, Yū and his friends come across Yōko, his "Virgin Mary
Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
" who is surrounded by a group of thugs. Still dressed as a woman, he helps Yōko, a skilled fighter herself, beat up the gang. Afterwards he kisses Yōko and runs away. Yū falls in love with her – the first time he's been in love with a girl - but Yōko falls for his disguise and develops feelings for his alter ego
An alter ego (Latin for "other I", " doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a differen ...
Sasori, or "Miss Scorpion".
Meanwhile, Yū is being followed by Aya Koike, a member of the cult
In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...
"Zero Church", who has become infatuated with him after she catches him taking a picture of her panties. Aya, who turned violent after being sexually abused
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assau ...
to the point of insanity, plans to bring Yū's entire family into the Zero Church and masquerades as Sasori to gain Yōko's favor.
Aya manipulates those around Yū and Yōko and Yū's family become caught up in the Zero Church. Yū desperately tries to free Yōko from the cult by kidnapping her but fails to persuade her to leave as she does not trust him to be Miss Scorpion and is convinced he is a pervert. Armed with a sword, Yū breaks into the Zero Church's building and again tries to escape with Yōko. Aya, who is present along with Yū's family, fights back, but commits suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
by driving the sword through her stomach when she realizes Yū's love for Yōko.
Yū is taken to a mental hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociati ...
, where he has forgotten all of his past and convinced himself that he is really Sasori. Yōko comes to visit, claiming that she now realises that she loves him as he was the one always trying to save her. Yū cannot remember who she is, so security escort the hysterical Yōko out of the building. Moments later, Yū remembers her and escapes from the hospital, running after the car driving Yōko away. Yū catches up, smashes open the car window, and joins hands with Yōko.
Cast
* Takahiro Nishijima
is a Japanese singer and actor who is the main vocalist of the group AAA
AAA, Triple A, or Triple-A is a three-letter initialism or abbreviation which may refer to:
Airports
* Anaa Airport in French Polynesia (IATA airport code AAA)
* Logan ...
as Yū Honda
* Hikari Mitsushima
is a Japanese actress, singer and model. In 2017 she was the vocalist and dancer in Mondo Grosso's videos for "Labyrinth", which has garnered over 32 million views on YouTube as of 2 February 2022, and "In this World".
Career
She began her mus ...
as Yōko Ozawa
* Sakura Ando
is a Japanese actress.
Career
Ando won the award for Best Supporting Actress at the 31st Yokohama Film Festival 2010 for ''Love Exposure'', ''The Wonderful World of Captain Kuhio'' and '' Tsumitoka batsutoka''. She was also nominated for the a ...
as Aya Koike
* Makiko Watanabe
is a Japanese actress. She has appeared in more than 60 films since 1996.
Awards
Watanabe was given the award for best script at the 1999 Mainichi Film Awards for '' M/Other'' with director Nobuhiro Suwa and co-star Tomokazu Miura
is a Japan ...
as Kaori Fujiwara
* Atsuro Watabe as Tetsu Honda
Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, ''Love Exposure'' holds an approval rating of 91% based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 7.74/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "An engagingly funny melodrama as well as an ambitious exploration of sexual behavior, Sion Sono's Love Exposure provides nearly four hours of extremely strange and entertaining cinema." On Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 11 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Jaime Grijalba of ''Brooklyn Magazine
''Brooklyn Magazine'' is an online news magazine, focusing on "New York’s most populous borough through the lens of culture, community, commerce, arts and leisure." The company was bought by Michael Bassik and the website was launched in Decembe ...
'' wrote that "nothing can prepare anyone for the madness of this profound work of love, perversion, religion, friendship and conspiracies. It’s the most bombastic work of Japanese Cinema of the past decade and maybe the only four-hour film you can watch more than three times ..in a year." In 2015, Jasper Sharp of the British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
listed it as one of the 10 great Japanese films of the 21st century. Freelance film critic Kenji Fujishima also voted ''Love Exposure'' the ninth greatest film of the century in BBC's 2016 poll.
Awards
The film received the following awards and nominations:
References
External links
*
{{Sion Sono
2000s romantic comedy-drama films
2008 films
2008 action thriller films
Cross-dressing in film
Films directed by Sion Sono
Films set in Japan
Films shot in Tokyo
Japanese independent films
Japanese LGBT-related films
Films set in religious buildings and structures
2008 independent films
2000s Japanese films