is a

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

Japanese Pink film directed by

Yūji Tajiri is a Japanese film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the group of '' pink film'' directors collectively known as the , a group which also includes Toshiya Ueno, Mitsuru Meike, Shinji Imaoka, Yoshitaka Kamata, Toshirō Enomoto a ...

. It was chosen as Best Film of the year at the

Pink Grand Prix The or is an annual Japanese film award ceremony which recognizes excellence in the pink film genre. Referred to by Miho Toda as the "Academy Awards of the Pink Film", the ceremony attracts a diverse audience of industry personnel, film scholar ...

ceremony. After her boyfriend leaves her, a 28-year-old woman has a romance with a 20-year-old man. Jasper Sharp writes that ''Office Lady Love Juice'' is a good entry film for newcomers to the ''pink film'' genre. It is, he judges, a "subtly-realised and well-drawn character study" which marked a change in style for Kokuei. Longtime fans of the genre also showed their approval by awarding it Best Film at the 1999

. The film also won awards for Best Director (Yūji Tajiri), Best Screenplay (Kōsuke Takeda) and Best Actor (Mikio Satō). The film became something of a symbol of the rift between the older ''pinku shitenno'' ("Four Heavenly Kings" or "Four Devils") and the ''shichifukujin'' ("Seven Lucky Gods") groups of directors when it beat

Takahisa Zeze is a Japanese film director and screenwriter first known for his soft-core pornographic ''pink films'' of the 1990s. Along with fellow directors, Kazuhiro Sano, Toshiki Satō, and Hisayasu Sato, he is known as one of the . In recent years, he ha ...

's '' Anarchy in Japansuke: The Woman Who Comes When Watched'' for the top spot. The older Zeze had been a vocal critic of the younger directors' films which avoided the experimentation and politically charged messages which characterize the work of the ''shitenno''. Calling the ''shichifukujins films "weak" and "light", Zeze engaged in a heated spat with Tajiri on the stage of the awards ceremony. Jasper Sharp writes that the scuffle was mainly a staged controversy for the benefit of the audience, as no real personal animosity exists between the two groups of directors. The younger group all gained their first filmmaking experiences by working on films of the older directors. The mainstream film community also awarded the film at the 9th "Japanese Film Professional's Award" ceremony, where ''Love Juice'' was named the 7th best release of the year. In 2002, three years after its initial release, the film had the distinction of winning the last P-1 Grand-Prix. This festival was designed to highlight the current crop of ''pink films'' by showing 16 of the best releases on double-bills over a one-week period. At the end of the showings, the audience voted for the best film. Because of the expense involved in mounting the festival, it was only held three times. The 2002 ceremony was included as part of the Udine Far East Film Festival.Sharp, p.312.

References

Bibliography

* {{end 1999 films Erotic romance films Films directed by Yūji Tajiri 1990s Japanese-language films Pink films Shintōhō Eiga films 1990s Japanese films