Review by fergus-stewart

This is the ideal movie to put in your DVD player in order to impress your friends with your new flat-screen TV! The colours have been ramped up to 11 and the photography is absolutely stunning. Near the beginning of the film we see Anna Tsuchiya's character as a child watching the Oiran (the number 1 courtesan) parading down the street on her incredibly high wooden sandals. It is one of several visual sequences which, as a lover of the Japanese aesthetic (past and present) I simply can't get out of my head! Fantastic! The director (she is more famous as a photographer) uses the same approach (of modern music for a period movie) as Sophia Coppola in 'Marie Antoinette' but, for my money, much more successfully. Modern music frequently jars in Japanese movies but here it works brilliantly. Beneath the incredible visuals the story is really one of the brightly-plumed bird trapped in a gilded cage; beautiful as she and everything around her is, Anna Tsuchiya's character knows that escape seems impossible. But make no mistake, this is not a gloomy film, it's a downright treat.