She's Just a Shadow

Its a great watch if you like noir movies good characters and great storyline must watch to understand

I stumbled upon the 2019 movie "She's Just a Shadow" by random chance in 2021, and I must admit that I was immediately drawn to it, as the movie's cover is rather interesting. So of course I sat down to watch this, not knowing what I was in for, nor what to expect.

And wow, this movie was atrocious. It was an artsy-fartsy kind of movie trying to imitate movies made by Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez, but writer and director Adam Sherman, whom is behind "She's Just a Shadow", just didn't have the particular grace or style that was being imitated.

"She's Just a Shadow" was essentially a movie glorifying the intake of illegal substances, prostitution and promiscuities, oh, and violence. And I must admit that I just found it difficult to wrap my head around the excessive use of rhinestones on the faces of the women in the movie, and the weird make-up with the tanned faces and white circles around the eyes. And "She's Just a Shadow" just had way too much focus on showing off naked women. Sure, this has appeal with a younger audience I suppose, but if you are sitting down to watch "She's Just a Shadow" with the hopes of it being a proper movie, you are in for a rude awakening.

I found absolutely nothing appealing or interesting here, and I gave up on the story about halfway through. By that time I had just had enough of pointless nudity, drug abuse scenes, and a whole lot of actual nothing going on. Talk about a swing and a miss from writer and director Adam Sherman.

And if "She's Just a Shadow" was supposed to take place in Japan, why is everyone speaking English? Even the news reporters on TV were speaking English. Nay, there was no credibility to this aspect of the movie.

The characters in the movie were pointless to me, as they were either just naked, selling themselves for drugs or money, or partaking in the usage of illegal substances. So yeah, there was nothing worthwhile here in terms of properly written characters with depth or appeal. And the mediocre dialogue wasn't exactly selling the characters either.

As for the acting in the movie, well for the most parts, then the performances put on were actually fair enough and adequate, considering the absolute lack of proper storyline and script here. But you will not find yourself in for an evening of Shakespearian performances, that's for sure.

"She's Just a Shadow" is not a movie that I will ever return to watch again, in an attempt to finish the last half of the movie. No, the movie just failed to entertain me or provide me with any sense of enjoyment. This was a waste of my time, money and effort.

I am rating "She's Just a Shadow" a two out of ten stars, and that is based solely on the production value of the movie. Ultimately, then the movie's cover and poster was actually the best thing about the entire movie.

Everything about this movie is highly stylized, which automatically means that everything about it is going to be intentionally over the top. If you understand this and keep it in mind while you watch, it makes the experience a good one. If you're a person who only watches "normal" movies, however, then this will seem like trash to you. It's a shame, from the movie's rating, that there are obviously a lot of people out there who don't understand this.

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.

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.