Bashing
Iraq is never mentioned in Masahiro Kobayashi's In Competition drama Bashing, but that war-torn nation lurks like an open sore beside his absorbing look at the alienation of a young Japanese woman whose misadventures there cause her to be reviled when she returns home.
Based on an actual event, the film tells of Yuko (Fusako Urabe), who went to the Middle East as a volunteer for a charitable organization but was kidnapped and taken hostage. Returning to Japan upon her release, Yuko finds herself the subject of harassment and abuse from friends and strangers.
Kobayashi has created memorable characters aided greatly by fine acting from the entire cast, but the film falls short of its powerful potential due to a lack of essential information. It might be apt to be opaque about Yuko's hostage experience but a better account of why her release should cause such widespread revulsion in her native land absolutely requires being made clear.
As it is, moviegoers in other lands will remain mystified as the film has too many unanswered questions and will most likely leave audiences dissatisfied.
The title itself needs explaining as Yuko is "bashed" by people for having survived her ordeal. One explains that she would have been a heroine had she been killed but her survival has made her an embarrassment to all of Japan. Why, we never learn.
We first see the elfin but serious-minded Yuko six months back in her homeland working as a hotel cleaner. It's quickly established that her colleagues won't speak to her and before the day is out, she has been fired.
Picking up food from a store near her home, she is assaulted by three young louts who stomp her takeaway meal into the ground. At home with her sympathetic father (Ryuzo Tanaka) and gracious stepmother (Nene Otsuka), Yuko suffers through abusive phone messages, and even her family doesn't know what to say to her.
Difficulties escalate as the young woman's boyfriend (Takayuki Kato) coldly dumps her and the managers at her father's factory complain about damage to the company's reputation.
The film has a generally drab look, and Kobayashi indulges in too many extended scenes marked only by an absence of drama. But he builds an effective element of dread so that merely carrying a food package upstairs in an apartment building becomes suspenseful.
It would be a disappointment, however, if the director merely intends a blanket indictment of Japan as a closed, small-minded and intolerant society. Bashing is a relatively short film, and it would have benefited greatly from a wider perspective.
In the end, the picture impresses thanks to powerful acting from Urabe, Tanaka and Otsuka in particular, as well as some gripping monologs on love and loss, and the rewards to be found in helping the less fortunate far away.
BASHING
Monkey Town Prods.
Credits: Director, screenwriter: Masahiro Kobayashi; Producers: Masahiro Kobayashi, Naoko Okamura; Cinematographer: Koichi Saitoh; Editor: Naoki Kaneko; Music: Hiroshi Hayashi. Cast: Yuko: Fusako Urabe; Her father: Ryuzo Tanaka; Her lover: Takayuki Kato; Father's boss: Kikujiro Honda; Hotel owner: Teruyuki Kagawa; Stepmother: Nene Otsuka.
No MPAA rating, running time: 82 minutes...
Based on an actual event, the film tells of Yuko (Fusako Urabe), who went to the Middle East as a volunteer for a charitable organization but was kidnapped and taken hostage. Returning to Japan upon her release, Yuko finds herself the subject of harassment and abuse from friends and strangers.
Kobayashi has created memorable characters aided greatly by fine acting from the entire cast, but the film falls short of its powerful potential due to a lack of essential information. It might be apt to be opaque about Yuko's hostage experience but a better account of why her release should cause such widespread revulsion in her native land absolutely requires being made clear.
As it is, moviegoers in other lands will remain mystified as the film has too many unanswered questions and will most likely leave audiences dissatisfied.
The title itself needs explaining as Yuko is "bashed" by people for having survived her ordeal. One explains that she would have been a heroine had she been killed but her survival has made her an embarrassment to all of Japan. Why, we never learn.
We first see the elfin but serious-minded Yuko six months back in her homeland working as a hotel cleaner. It's quickly established that her colleagues won't speak to her and before the day is out, she has been fired.
Picking up food from a store near her home, she is assaulted by three young louts who stomp her takeaway meal into the ground. At home with her sympathetic father (Ryuzo Tanaka) and gracious stepmother (Nene Otsuka), Yuko suffers through abusive phone messages, and even her family doesn't know what to say to her.
Difficulties escalate as the young woman's boyfriend (Takayuki Kato) coldly dumps her and the managers at her father's factory complain about damage to the company's reputation.
The film has a generally drab look, and Kobayashi indulges in too many extended scenes marked only by an absence of drama. But he builds an effective element of dread so that merely carrying a food package upstairs in an apartment building becomes suspenseful.
It would be a disappointment, however, if the director merely intends a blanket indictment of Japan as a closed, small-minded and intolerant society. Bashing is a relatively short film, and it would have benefited greatly from a wider perspective.
In the end, the picture impresses thanks to powerful acting from Urabe, Tanaka and Otsuka in particular, as well as some gripping monologs on love and loss, and the rewards to be found in helping the less fortunate far away.
BASHING
Monkey Town Prods.
Credits: Director, screenwriter: Masahiro Kobayashi; Producers: Masahiro Kobayashi, Naoko Okamura; Cinematographer: Koichi Saitoh; Editor: Naoki Kaneko; Music: Hiroshi Hayashi. Cast: Yuko: Fusako Urabe; Her father: Ryuzo Tanaka; Her lover: Takayuki Kato; Father's boss: Kikujiro Honda; Hotel owner: Teruyuki Kagawa; Stepmother: Nene Otsuka.
No MPAA rating, running time: 82 minutes...
- 5/18/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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