New Wave director Yazaki Hitoshi made a great splash in 1992 with his acclaimed March Comes in Like a Lion, a beautifully pondering film about incest. But since then, Yazaki has remained low-profile, or rather no-profile save for 2000's under-the-radar Hana o Tsumu Shojo to Mushi o Korosu Shojo. Fourteen years after his groundbreaking film, Yazaki earns much-deserved accolades once more for Strawberry Shortcakes. With a commercially friendly cast, a pop-infused soundtrack, and a manga-based story, at first glance Strawberry Shortcakes seems an unlikely title from Yazaki, but rest assured that the film unmistakably bears the director's mark.
Focusing on the lives of four lonely women in Tokyo, Strawberry Shortcakes makes a devastatingly cynical and achingly realistic statement about contemporary life and urban isolation. Painfully acute in its observations, the film is undeniably melancholic but also humorously self-deprecating in its portrayal of four rather strange, rather normal women and their search for love and self. Director Yazawa brings the best out of his talented cast which includes Ikewaki Chizuru (Across a Gold Prairie), Nakamura Yuko (Blood and Bones), Kase Ryo (Honey and Clover), and Ando Masanobu (Seishun Kinzoku Bat). Strawberry Shortcakes manga creator Nananan Kiriko also stars as one of the four leads under her stage name Iwase Toko.
Satoko (Ikewaki Chizuru) just got dumped by her boyfriend, and works a thankless reception job at a call girl service. Her only consolation in life: drinking beer and mumbling prayers to a small stone which she has christened a god. Satoko's death-obsessed call-girl friend Akiyo (Nakamura Yuko) sleeps in a coffin and is diligently saving up money for a fifth-floor condo - so she can jump out and kill herself when the moment calls for it. Her only consolation: drinking with her friend Kikuchi (Ando Masanobu) whom she secretly loves. Reclusive illustrator Toko (Iwase Toko) is thrown into a bitter binge-eating slump by the news of her ex-boyfriend's marriage, and by her current assignment to draw God. Toko's roommate Chihiro (Nakagoshi Noriko) is an outwardly cheerful office worker who loves shopping, makeup, and her egotistical boyfriend (Kase Ryo), but the unrewarding relationship leaves her no less lonely than Toko. Anonymous faces in a big city, these four women struggle to find happiness on their own terms. |