All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) Reviews

If your main interest in Japanese cinema is Martial Arts, J-Horror, Anime, or Hentai, you will probably hate this film. The story is slow-paced and the film is long. Plan for intermissions. If you don't understand Japanese language or culture, it is especially difficult to follow. If you're not scared off yet, All About Lily Chou-Chou is an artistic masterpiece. Like most art cinema films, entertainment value is secondary. What Steven Spielberg is to Norman Rockwell, Shunji Iwai is to Yayoi Kusama. If you're not familiar with Yayoi Kusama and don't have the energy to look it up, skip Lily Chou-Chou and go rent something by Takashi Miike. All About Lily Chou-Chou represents several multimedia firsts, e.g., it was the first full-length Japanese feature film to be shot and edited entirely in the digital medium. My wife and I loved this film, and we intend to purchase it in the near future.
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oh man i was sooooo bored watching this movie. i wish i had researched it more, the director, re-read and looked up more on the synopsis, etc, maybe i wouldve enjoyed it. the look of the movie is beautiful, (those rice fields of the rich green were supposed to be sterile i guess but i found them rich and gorgeous) but the story was so slow. ended up fastforwarding through the last two scenes, and wishing i had started fast forwarding earlier (if you forward it on 2x, you can still read the subtitles). this bad boy was like 2.5 hours long, which is long when youre not feeling the story.
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I had high hopes for this movie, but found it inaccessible, maybe becaue I am an outsider to the culture. The intense and relentless angst of adolescence were ultimately stifling, and I found the plot somewhat cryptic. I gave up after getting through about two-thirds of the movie and bolted through the door for some light and air.
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I could feel the movie through the musical score. The voice of Lily Chou-Chou (Salyu) was very moving, reminding me of my favorite songs from UA. I enjoyed the visit to Okinawa. I like the presentation of frequent "interruptions" of the internet messaging. And to answer one of the earliest questions, "Yes, Shina Ringo has the ether." I'm going to buy a copy to permanently add to my collection.
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This overrated drama focuses on a group of kids who constantly humiliate and abuse one another. The middle of the film contains a 20 minute vacation segment that was basically pointless. Add in some masturbation, a gang rape, and annoying webpage discussions, and what you have is a 140 minute debacle. Any "depth" attributed to this film is really just in reference to all the meaningless psychobabble and enigmatic talk that doesn't mean a lick of sense - a quintessential example of faux intelligence, to say the least. It's attempt to address the issue of teenager angst (as well as it's technical aspects) saves it from the bottom of the barrel. Not a good film by director Shunji Iwai.
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