J-Drama Review: Fishbowl Wives (2022)

 For the entirety of my viewing of Netflix’s latest adult drama Fishbowl Wives (2022) I compared myself endlessly to the pensioner Mrs. Glick from The Simpsons. Anyone else remember the scene where Bart is at her house weeding the garden to raise some pocket money and Mrs. Glick is sat in her armchair watching a steamy day-time soap opera and commenting “filthy… but genuinely arousing”?

 This eight-part Japanese drama, inspired by Ryo Kurasawa’s 2017 manga series of the same name, will have you sitting there Mrs. Glick Style with your knitting (as I very much was) picking your jaw back up off the floor and praying no other member of your family walks in on you watching such smut.

 But Fishbowl Wives is compelling, heartfelt smut. Set in “The Heights”, an ultra-glamorous multi-storey Tokyo apartment complex. The secret misery and despair of the complexes married denizens is hidden well behind a mask of outward success and affluence. King and Queen of Living a Lie are the Hiraga family.

 Chain hair-salon owning extraordinaire power couple Sakura Hiraga (played by the warm and engaging Ryoko Shinohara) and her charming, handsome husband Takuya (played by Masanobu Ando, best known as Kazuo Kiriyama in Kinji Fukasaku’sBattle Royale) are equal parts envied and adored by fellow residents of “The Heights”. A beautiful pair of goldfish swimming around a shining bowl for all to admire, but the water within is dangerously dirty.

 The viewer soon learns that their relationship is more akin to that of Julia Roberts and Patrick Bergin’s in Sleeping withthe Enemy. Takuya is a serial womanizer and gaslighting wife beater. How much more will Sakura put up with before she’s pushed to breaking point? Isn’t there anyone who can help her find the natural strength and resilience inside her to take back control of her life?

 Cue Sakura’s goofily adorable extra-marital love interest HarutoKazama. Haruto owns the local goldfish shop and has more than a few skeletons in his closet, but will face them all if it means he can be with Sakura, who he genuinely loves. However, loving another man’s wife is risky business at the best of times, especially when the wife is viewed by the husband as a personal possession and punching bag for the sole use of the husband. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that Takuya is not going to be receptive to having another man take his toy out of his sandbox.

 Featuring disturbing scenes of sexual assault and domestic violence, the Sakura/Takuya/Harutolove triangle is the central pillar storyline. It’s a plot provokes strong reactions as a Westerner to the Japanese attitudes towards, and divorce laws governing, those trapped in violent marriages. Divorce, regardless of the circumstances, is still considered shameful.

 Less shameful than divorce, apparently, is infidelity. If there’s no shame in infidelity, then let me tell you, the other “Goldfish Wives” of the show are living proud as punch.

 There’s Bento Wife whose husband gets a little more than he bargains for when bringing in a third party to their bedroom. There’s Outsourcing Wife, who reasons that if her husband won’t give her the baby she so yearns for, someone else can. 

The Running Wife thinks that her husband is running away with her life and now she’s left with an identity that doesn’t belong to her. A desperate act of cheating is the only path to communication and ultimate reconciliation. 

And Renovation Wife, an adulterous, raging bitch at the best of times, cowed by an overbearing mother-in-law and high maintenance husband, finds solace and self-acceptance in the arms of a damaged contractor.

 Over-seeing, and openly encouraging these wives to stray and find both emotional and sexual satisfaction from whatever source they can is resident mystic Mei. Is Mei really psychic? Or does she just like seeing women take back some control over their own destinies and break free from the social constraints trapping all these goldfish women in ill-fitting bowls?

 Beautifully shot, clever “fishbowl” style camera work, exquisite lighting to capture and reflect moods, gorgeous musical underscore and rife with metaphor and social commentary, Fishbowl Wives is a gripping drama that is as heart-breaking as it is heart-racing. Imagine… a sexually explicit Desperate Housewives with meatier plots and considerably better acting.

 This won’t be for everyone. I enjoyed it immensely, it was hard to watch at times and not every minute of the show is flawless. But, if you’re looking for an excuse to melodramatically gasp and cry “Escandalo!” at the T.V. while clapping your hand to your cheek - then this is the show for you.

 5 stars from Straight Outta Kanto!

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K-Movie Review: Love & Leashes (2022)

If you’re looking for Valentine’s Netflix viewing with more… bite, then South Korean romantic drama Love and Leashes (2022) is the spicy little flick for you!

Set in the office of a high powered television network, Love and Leashes focuses on the stunningly gorgeous PR rep Ji-woo, played by K-Pop veteran Seohyun. Ji-woo is a competent, feisty career woman who is frustrated at constantly being over-ridden and undermined by her misogynistic male boss.

Along comes the almost unbearably adorable new boy to the office, “Mr. Perfect” Ji-hoo. Ji-hoo is also played by the K-Pop alumni Lee-jun Young. Ji-woo is immediately rankled by Ji-hoo because he is able to express the exact same opinions as her in the boardroom – but with impunity because he’s male.

In textbook rom-com fashion, despite being highly irritated by this main, Ji-woo can’t but help be greatly intrigued by this mysterious Ji-hoo. And judging by the covert looks in the staff canteen, the feeling is mutual.

With the help of a wrongly delivered – and deeply private, highly embarrassing - package to the office, Ji-woo and Ji-hoo’s (you can see how the package went astray with those names!) relationship is about to go from coy to kinky overnight.

Ji-woo and Ji-hoo swiftly enter a consensual S&M contract. Ji-woo finds a way to release all her career frustrations and gain control once again over her life and Ji-hoo finally has someone who can cater to his needs without judgment.Over time however, their feelings for each other blossom and the straight forward lines of slave and master blur.

Love and Leashes, while not without its flaws, is a visually stylish cute and quirky romance with a great underscore. Lightly tackling issues such as sexism, female empowerment, the public stigma of kink-shaming, the dangers of online dating and the importance of being authentic in one’s own sexual identity, the movie manages to carefully balance the sweet with the sour.

Perfect for fans of the hilarious Netflix comedy Bonding (but much less gritty) and definitely better in every way possible than the trash Twilight rip-off that is 50 Shades of Grey – this is a surprisingly heart-warming little gem that will keep you and your loved one cuddled up on the couch under a toasty blanket for a couple of hours. Just don’t watch this with your doggo around, the poor pal may be highly offended at certain scenes! 

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Anime Movie Review: Belle (2021)

And next on The Masked Singer, everybody please welcome Belle to the stage! I jest, but still, it's hard not to draw comparisons between the two. Belle is the latest cinematic offering from Mamoru Hosoda, who brought us epic animated yarns such as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Mirai and The Boy and the Beast.

Belle centres around mopey young teenager Suzu. Suzu is still grieving over the not-so-recent tragic loss of her mother, growing more distant by the day with her father, withers at school around her more vibrant and confident peers and, worst of all for this once passionate musician, Suzu has lost her ability to sing. 

Things seem beyond all hope for listless Suzu until she one day stumbles upon a fully immersive social media site "U". U is a vast, vast virtual reality world where users have new personas created for them digitally based on their own personal biometrics.

In real life, Suzu is a gawky, be-freckled wallflower with no voice. In U, and under the careful career managment of her hilarious best friend Hiroka, she is transformed into the stunningly beautiful vocaloid Belle. (Bell being the English translation of her name). Gaining international mass media attention and fame as virtual singer Belle, the world becomes obsessed with discovering her true identitiy. 

However, it's not only the beautiful songstress that the denizens of U are dying to unmask. Who is this ferocious Dragon character going around causing a terrible ruckus and running amok!? Is he as vicious as he seems, or will music ultimately soothe the savage beast...?

As the lines between IRL and the digital world disintegrate, it's time for Suzu to leave the past behind and take firm charge of her future.

Belle is a blend of traditional fairytale, fantasy and vey grim reality. Suzu's rural home town is one of the most lush and verdant animated depictions of Japan I've ever seen, with painstaking day-to-day homelife details. 

I have a few issues with the world of U. The physics and mechanics of the virtual world aren't clearly explained, Suzu just appears to enter through her mobile phone and ear-pods, nothing more, which raises a lot of questions about whether she's slumped in the middle of the road drooling while her brain is transported to the fantastic other world!?

The blending of worlds and the themes of loss and triumph are nothing new for Mamoru Hosoda, but there's plenty of highs and lows, feelz and humour in Belle to keep audiences entertained and engaged. The visuals are spectacular, the plot is meaty and well paced and the sound track is exquisite.

Despite all these boxes being ticked, this still isn't the greatest movie of Hosoda's and feels like an elevated version of Summer Wars that's more style than substance. I'd give Belle a 7/10, mainly for the giant sonic whale that floats through U acting as Belle's personal stage. He is a breathtakingly majestic good boy.

Don't just take my word for this though! I saw Belle as a preview at The Lighthouse Cinema, Dublin with thanks to the Japanese Film Festival Ireland but it's now readily available for all nerds across Irish cinemas.

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J-Drama Review: Followers (2020)

 

If the grey old Irish winter has left you feeling gloomy and unglamorous then may I recommend a hearty dose of technicolour escapism?

Mika Ninagawa's latest T.V. series Followers (now on Netflix) is a compelling and vibrant drama focusing on two friend groups of sinfully stylish Tokyo urbanites. 

Tokyo Urbanite Group A are a gaggle of gorgeous, successful professional women (and their assorted lovers and gay best friends) who confidently navigate their careers in photography, fashion and celebrity PR to greater heights. Think Japanese Sex and the City.

Tokyo Urbanite Group B are an equally attractive, but younger gang of scrappy, struggling actors and artists. Reliant on an over-saturated social media and the nepotistic whims of the uncaring Gate Keepers to Success for for any crumb of recognition, these young up and comers are edging closer to eternal obscurity. 

Followers skillfully collides these two worlds with far reaching consequences for all concerned. The obscure shoot to fame to notoriety then to obscurity once more and the famous revaluate their tenuouse roles at the top and the harsh reality of an idustry that quntifies everyone's value regardless of past endeavours.

A vivid portrayal of how not only do all lives, no matter what the social sphere, touch each other in one way or another, Followers shows the staggering power held by those that have a high social media following.

However, it's not all eye-melting haute couture, fever-dream monster cafes, Asian celebrity cameos (Miyavi, Yu Yamada, Monsta X to name but a few) and insta-worthy cityscapes of Tokyo at night. Hard hitting issues such as miscarriage, breast cancer, women in the workplace, homophobia, love, loss, back-stabbery and the public crucifixion of the famous no longer deemed worthy of fame are topics expertly handled without any overt preachy message. The drama simply unfolds before the viewer who is left to form their own opinions.

While Sacrifice x Success is the dual headed dragon each of the charcters need to over come, it's ultimately friendship and authenticity in following one's own path that is the key to happiness.

Followers is deliciously binge-worthy at just nine forty minute episodes (I watched them all in one go one stormy Saturday) and certainly has the plot subtance to go with the almost unbearably striking visual style. 

Given the electric use of neons and bold, clashing prints, it's no surprise to learn that the director for this, Mika Ninagawa, was also the director for the equally electric 2007 pop art geisha movie Sakuran featuring the rebellious beauty Anna Tsuchiya (Kamikaze Girls)

So, grab the duvet and have a massive mug of tea close at hand and forget all your troubles... by watching someone else's! Just be prepared to lose a few K in your bank account afterward booking the next flight to Tokyo! #holidayenvy #doinitforthegram

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