Samehada otoko to momojiri onna

I'm on a journey. Next stop: Asanoland.

Seriously. After undergoing an experience called Survival Style 5+, I decided to peruse Tadanobu-san's cinema library. Having seen Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl, I began to recall the story, but enjoyed the minute details, random Japanese cultural references, and a mix of really eccentric characters.

This ain't no gunfest. If you want bodies and shells hitting the floor, catch Hard Boiled. SSM+PHG shows you people in a moment in time what happens when they interact. Asano as Samehada oozes the 'segoy' yakuza with style to match! He rarely panics, acts quickly, and even has time to joke and laugh. Along with the reserved Toshiko, the story revolves mainly around this unlikely duo. You also have yakuza whose topics of interest include rare ad collecting, glue sniffing, and, of course.... finding Samehada.

This film's fun to watch. If you are going in expecting to see all out sawed off shotgun blasts, drive-bys, and opium plants exploding, it's not going to happen. This gangsta movie has a dark, comedic flavor which you may find yourself becoming fond of. Plus, it's a good starter to see the talented Tadanobu at work.

After reading the other comments, then actually seeing the film, it simply doesn't measure up.

The first 1/3 of the film is quite a blast, with nearly everything the reviews mention - fast editing and sassy dialogue, wacky characters and, for good measure, perhaps cinema history's shortest explicit sex scene (about four seconds).

But after this part, it loses most of its puff and all of its potential originality. A bit like getting on a rollercoaster, having a ripper ride, but the machine slowing to a crawl just before the first big dip, and crawling home slowly.

In conclusion, it does have good stuff, mostly at the beginning. Looks like it wanted to be a weird take on Pulp Fiction but got seriously lost.

A man called Samehada ("Shark Skin") steals some money from his Yakuza boss, and goes on the run. He crosses paths with a girl called Momojiri ("Peach Hip", or "Peach Ass" if you prefer) who is fleeing from a hotel manager who doesn't treat her well. They decide to throw their fortunes in together and try to escape the Yakuza and an assassin.

The credit sequence introduces you to the cast of the characters you are about to meet, and it was very worrying... so many characters, I thought "it's going to get real confusing", but this is not the case at all. Even though there are a lot of characters, each one is well developed and unique - no problem following who they are and what their relationships are. It's one hell of a set of characters too... "colourful" hardly seems sufficiently descriptive, but they are all brilliantly conceived and portrayed. The main focus of the movie is the interplay between all these characters, with lots of sharp and witty dialogue throughout, and a generally black humour in the situations they get into and the way they get out of them.

The movie is fast moving... very well paced in fact, and beautifully filmed & edited too. There's a little bit of violence, but nothing that's going the slightest concern to anybody who's seen some Kitano or Miike. Almost wholesome in fact

It's difficult to say what makes the movie so good - it's not really any one thing - it's basically just an all-round clever, funny and exceptionally well made movie. Recommended!

Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl was one of the best Japanese films that I have seen in a while. The fast pace, quick cuts, and awesome soundtrack made for a great movie. Not to mention the cool characters and decent plot. Tadanobu Asano wasn't as cool in this movie as he was in Ichi the Killer, but then again who could top anything from that movie. At first I didn't know if I would like the movie, being a fan of older samurai films and not much for no-plot action movies, but I'll have to hand it to this film, because even though the plot was a little main stream (man steals Yakuza money and then the gangsters go after him) the cinematography and the fact that the story wasn't really told in chronological order really made this movie stand out from the stereotypical action movie. The way the director would occasionally slow down or speed up the film, or intentionally put in serious jump-cuts, really added to the feel of the movie. I thought that it was a great movie and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Japanese cinema.

Some great characters in this film enjoyed the costumes and comedic characters especially the big tough guy at the beginning and the scene where he's messing around in the Jeep that he found like a seven-year-old boy was hilarious,short but incredibly violent the shoot out scene in the bathroom window I like to lick my car frame of a country like oil painting when he moved out of the frame of the window. Plot was bit cliche, this film felt like a bit of a mish mash of Tarantino guy Ritchie and Japanese gangster films, weird Britpop rock soundtrack thing going on kind of enjoyed it for the 90s vibe but all in all felt like a original film with clear influences from many other directors.