Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!

Colour, 35 mm
Japan, 2007, 112 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

A one-horse town in central Japan does not look like the kind of place where passions would flare. Nonetheless, set to the backdrop of the traditional, rustic scenery, a drama of love and hate plays out that reflects the surrealistic world of Japanese manga horror comics. The eccentric and selfish Sumika, who lives in Tokyo and wants to be an actress, arrives for the funeral of her parents, who have tragically died. Her younger sister Kiyomi, a talented cartoonist, is overtly afraid of her, and her stepbrother, Shinji, who has married an orphan named Machiko, is nervous and guarded around her. Each member of this dysfunctional family tries to find the meaning of life and love in their own way – but will they succeed? Shades of black humour mingle in the dialogues and actions of the individual characters; the drama of the past and conflicts of the present come to life in the comics caricatures, uncovering a bloody family strife and a collision of self-love.

About the director

Daihachi Yoshida (b. 1963, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan) has been working as an advertising director for more than 18 years. He has done several hundred commercials and won a number of awards in Cannes, New York, and at AdFest Asia Pacific among others, and is considered a first-class director in the advertising world. He has also shot music videos, television dramas, and shorts, of which we could name Every Boy Loves an Airplane (Otokonoko wa mninna hikoki ga suki, 2002) and Micuwa (2003). Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!, which is based on Yukiko Motoya’s novel of the same name, is his feature directorial debut and was presented in the 46th International Critics’ Week at Cannes in 2007.