She's Just a Shadow

Often times a movie is bad and that is the end of it. I have never seen a movie that is so compelling aesthetically, yet so vapid plot wise.

Every character is, for the most part, a terrible person. Some just happen to be out protagonists. Women are naked throughout the entirety of the film, to the extend that you become entirely desensitized to it by the half hour mark. In fact it was far more intriguing as to why characters wore close at all.

The film is icky, disturbing and gross. Bloody but not violent. Lots of nudity but no sex. The world is bleak, but since everyone we meet sucks it's hard to feel that bad for them. There's no grounding point. Technically, the script isn't terrible, at least minute to minute. Beat to beat however, it becomes clear the movie's overall focus it it's edgy set pieces and its dark aesthetics because the plot is not even boilerplate.

It's an interesting idea, premise wise and aesthetically. Decent in small doses. Terrible as a movie.

Written and directed by Adam Sherman, She's Just a Shadow revolves around a young woman and her family in Tokyo, along with her abusive gangster, a sadistic, perverted, serial-killer who ties his victims (all being women) to a railroad, and last, but not least, numerous prostitutes prancing around in their birthday suits; yeah, it's as jumbled as you would expect.

Let me start off by mentioning the direction ... It's fine, nothing spectacular, even when it's questionable at times; I'll get to that in a little bit. The writing however, let's just say that a 1st-grader could've written a better script than this. Like I said, it is a completely jumbled mess. The characters are mostly 2-dimmensional, especially the lead, and the acting, well, let's just say that 'wooden' would be too kind of a description for it.

And last, but certainly not least, I should mention the over-the-top violence and the needlessly gratuitous-nudity. First and for most, I am not a prude (quite the opposite in fact), nor do I have anything against blood or gore, as long as the two actually do something to service the plot and/or story-line. The gratuitous nudity did nothing to service the plot as much as it was used simply to pander to adolescent male viewers while the over-the-top violence was added purely for shock-value; and if you've actually seen the movie, you know which specific scene I'm referring to.

All-in-all, if you're a hormonal edgy-wannabe teen, knock yourself out and give this one a watch. Otherwise, do not listen to the positive reviews on this platform, they're liars. All that being said, I'm giving She's Just a Shadow 3.6/10 stars.

A world full of sleaze, full of blood and nudity. Filth some may say and the "underground" that is shown here is morally bankrupt to say the least. With an added side story of a pervert who has a train and serial killer obsession. That may be putting it mildy. And yet, the movie looks gorgeous! And that is not a pun nor a reference to all the beautiful people who act in this (mostly nude).

Cinematography is tight to say the least. While the story may not be enticing to some, remember how some were cherising Giallo movies and made a big deal out of them? This makes more sense than some (if not most) of them. So while this is not an "homage" per se, you may watch it with that in mind. It tries to shock and it probably succeeds to some degree, but it also has a convoluted story that will either annoy you or entice you for being so out there ...

This is what happens when you grow up in Tromaville and become a filmmaker. Imagine starting with Ichi the Killer and mixing in Scarface, Spun, Showgirls, and Summer of Sam while reading 50 Shades of Grey and you should be able to smell how this movie is. To say that this won't appeal to everybody is an understatement, but that has never determined whether a film is worth seeing. Despite the amount of time spent on scenes consisting mainly of nudity and drug use there is a story that unwinds as you go with a lump sum delivery in the last 10 minutes. Production value overall is good and the players skilled enough to deliver their dialogue naturally with the correct posture. If you are at all on the fence I would say give it a watch, you were curious enough to read this review so don't stop short here.

The story is a blend of traditional underground crime thriller exploration of sub-culture and more experimental risque imagery circling tropes such as sexploitation and torture porn. There is heavy influences that permeate the film, most notably Tarantino and Stahelski. The synopsis and my initial description make "She's Just A Shadow" seem like a very exciting film. And given the cinematography and set design for a lot of the scenes, this movie has some cool moments. But...there are several flaws here.

First off, the story moves so freely that there is a feeling of "lack of cohesion" that makes it hard for any of the major plot points to sink in. The foundation starts to feel weak. It is a gritty and interesting story, and the setting and subject matter are pulp fiction candy tropes. Unfortunately there seemed to be more focus creating moments of extreme sensationalized tableauxs, than creating solid story continuity. Again, there is some really cool stuff happening in "She's Just A Shadow", unfortunately it all seems disjointed and more fitting to music videos and short film, arthouse pieces.

The acting is tight, the cast do a good job bring life to these characters, there just isn't enough written here for them to go on. Most of the characters are two-dimensional, weakly written "shadows". So much so that inorder to give them substance you really need to grab on to the film's title, and near hallucinatory asthetics and hold on for dear life. Something that helps equally with watching this one is the celebratory over-the-top display of violence and gore. There is plenty of blood flowing in "She's Just A Shadow". I just don't know if there's enough going on here to satisfy most film fans.