Hebi ni piasu (2008) Reviews

• Yoshitaka get naked, tattooed, and drunk

  sitenoise2009-05-12

  For those who've seen "Noriko's Dinner Table" and wondered what happened to the younger sister played by Yuriko Yoshitaka ('just a nameless girl, walking toward the center of the city'), it may come as no surprise to see her show up naked, tattooed, and pierced in this tale of middle-class urban ennui in the underground. From one dreamworld to another. She doesn't have the sexual maturity to make the S&M stuff in this film remotely erotic and the two guys she bounces between, two tattooed punks, while giving us a multi-layered view of that world, are little more than posers. Their poses do reach beyond stereotype and the film tries to be cool towards them, demonstrating a reasonable awareness of the subject matter, but it comes up short in execution. I like Yoshitaka a lot, think she is a promising young actress, but don't think she is suited for this role. Snakes and Earrings is far more modern and realistic/relatable than a CAT III film, probably because its story comes from a teen-aged girl's prize winning novel rather than the sexist fantasies of old men, but while the film has a contemporary world view it doesn't have the story punch necessary to elevate it much beyond voyeurism. For those just interested in seeing Yoshitaka naked there's plenty of that but it's not enough to make this film more than a guilty pleasure.

• Snakes And Earrings (2008)

  SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain2012-09-13

  Like the wonderful book this was based on, the film is a small little gem. One that revolves around just three people. It explores the 'dark' world they come from, full of piercings, tattoos and rough sex. The film is very sensual but doesn't exclude passion from proceedings. Everything in the film is detailed as some form of release from the suffocating world each character finds them self in. Shot with utter simplicity, the development of the main tattoo is the perfect metaphor for the development of the female lead, as she becomes entwined with demons. The shots are calm and well considered, each one bringing to life a darker world in an accessible way. An excellent adaptation.

• Interesting subject matter, but extremely bland characters

  marlee-42012-06-09

  I see myself as someone who's reasonably capable of separating movies from the books they're based on, but in this case it is just too difficult. The book Snakes and Earrings is actually pretty good. The story is about a girl who suffers from some kind of depression that makes her so numb she has to feel pain to feel alive. The film is about a really annoying girl who just seems... for lack of a better word: stupid. I'm not gonna spoil the plot, I'll just say that I found the film an interesting example of how a good story can turn bad when the filmmaker forgets to focus on characters and their wants and needs. Frankly, all of the characters in the film version were extremely underdeveloped, especially the female one. I don't want my time back, I'm just a bit disappointed.

• So, she's a whore... and?

  ethSin2009-04-17

  This movie is about a girl falling in love with tongue piercing, tattoo, and binge drinking. The movie starts with the girl meeting a guy called "Ama" in a club, who has a 'split tongue'. Being a whore she is, she sleeps with him that night, and they start going out. She really likes the lizard-like 'split tongue', so she gets her new boyfriend to take her to a tattoo/piercing parlor. There, she sees cool tattoos they offered, and wants to get one as well. Being a whore she is, she sleeps with the tattoo guy for payment. Then keeps going there for more sex and slowly getting the tattoo done. Eventually, the tattoo is completed, and she loses purpose in life. What she takes up next is binge drinking. Then Ama suddenly died, and although she didn't give a crap about him and enjoyed getting banged by the tattoo guy every week, she loses her mind for an unknown reason. Then it turns out the tattoo guy probably raped and killed her boyfriend... Yeah, the script is a joke. I think the lead character is supposed to be somewhat smart and slightly a rebel, but the actress who played it was totally unconvincing, and spoke like a really dumb "gyaru". The result of this godly combination of crappy script and actress is that the leading character is a dumb whore, and nothing more. She didn't know the name and age of the guy she lived with for months, and apparently didn't care who killed him. Although the actor who played tattoo guy was somewhat good, this movie was a pointless waste of time. I have no idea what the director was trying to express in this film. Maybe it was just a softcore porn.