Love Exposure - Japan

          Director:  Shion Sono
          Year:  2008
          Plot:  “Three emotionally abused individuals from the fringes of society get locked in a convoluted love triangle.  Yuu, a Catholic boy searching for true love ends up taking "panty shot" photos of women in public.  Yoko, an anti-family, misandrist girl finds that her foster mother will be marrying Yuu's father.  Koike, co-ordinates a plan to convert Yuu's family to her cult.  Under her careful direction, their lives come crashing together in one fateful street fight.”


          I definitely had to watch this movie, as it stars one of my all time favorite Japanese musicians Takahiro Nishijima from the band AAA (Attack All Around).  Seriously, check him and the band out if you haven’t because they are great especially with Nishijima’s voice.
          Okay, back to the movie.  This was just about the longest movie I have ever watched, besides Stephen King’s Rose Red and that was meant to be a miniseries.  The thing is though, this movie was definitely worth the time spent to watch it.  Though it is just about four hours long, it is very entertaining and well paced.  The only reason it took me two days to watch this is because it was already two in the morning when I got to the 155 minute mark.  So yeah, I felt I needed to sleep before watching the last 82 minutes.
          This probably isn’t one for a prude to watch as there is much up-skirt shots and mentions of erections.  The fact is, this movie was very funny and not to be taken too seriously.  I mean a kid who runs around using martial arts moves to get up-skirt shots for his priest father (not literally, but so he can confess his sins).
          This movie was really just a bundle of jokes about different people and their issues.   The great thing though is that it did have its very serious points.  Even though it makes fun of so much and so many types of people there really is a great love story hidden within it.


          This is one of my favorite movies of all time.  This is definitely one that I would suggest to anybody with enough time for it.  For those who are rather busy, I would definitely still suggest this movie, but also that it should be watched in parts.  This movie deserves a higher acclaim than it has gotten, and I believe it isn’t well know simply for the 237 minutes it is.