Chiwawa-chan

Throughout the film, I kept having this feeling that it was a work of two very different people with opposite points of view. The premise and the storyline is by someone who clearly has critical yet empathic statements to make about youth, liberal capitalism, superficial acquaintanceship and information culture -presented in an interesting sort of coming-of-age angle. And then we have the director, whose decisions regarding cinematography, editing and sound/music clearly feel like coming from an opposite spectrum. Flashy, immature, shallow, cringe-inducing - a straight-up non-ironical embodiment of the culture that is being critiqued, complete with item dance numbers, colorful mixed media collages, extended slow-motion exploitative shots of nubile young bodies. There are (always have been) many Japanese directors who know how to critically show all of this stuff, without glorifying the very things they are being critical about. But this film is not one of them. There are, though, occasional moments where it almost feels like it is very close to reaching a balance, a sudden welcome shift of mood, but it never quite gets there. The performance of the cast is commendable, given that they were being directed by someone who clearly does not have enough maturity and experience.

" Chiwawa Chan " tried to be something extraordinary but it failed to do so.

My main problem was with the way that this movie was filmed. The idea of adding colour and lights was interesting, but it didn't pull through as it actually made it look like a very long music video. Plus, there were some music and dancing breaks that were too long to fit the movie. The camera work was mostly like a badly, low badget movie, or, rather, a home movie with badly lighting and close ups that didn't make sense. The editing was horrible too.

And now, there is the story. The main idea was interesting, but the way it was presented, you don't really get to see Chiwawa and her story, as it gets lost between bits of actual plot and fancy cinematography. Also, the story wasn't that good after all, as they left out what happened to her and they focused more on showing her crazy life, packed with over the top party, clubbing, sex, drinking and dancing.

At least the performances were good from everyone in the cast.

So, overall, two out of ten.

In my "The Limit of Sleeping Beauty" review, I mentioned that it was "A movie that will help people to deal with the death of a loved one using a sexy combination of sound and image." Chiwawa, however, is a friendship story that might convey the same feelings for the death of a friend.

The introduction of Chiwawa is pretty cool and while the story and themes are somewhat reminiscent of "Spring Breakers", it ends up following a different direction. The story of this character is told by each one of her friends and it keeps getting interesting as we dive deeper into the mind of someone who is seen as just as an instagram celebrity by those who don't know her. Not only her, but there's always something to say about her friends as well.

It has a lot of that energy of "The Limit of Sleeping Beauty" with all the music and dancing. It's just as frenetic and colorful as that one, with very catchy songs. One more sexy movie from Ken Ninomiya.