Lowlife Love (2015)

Lowlife Love: Directed by Eiji Uchida. With Masahiko Aoki, Masato Arai, Denden, Kanji Furutachi. Tetsuo (Kiyohiko Shibukawa) is a lowlife. A film director with a small indie hit many years back, yet he has never gotten any further as he refuses to go against his ‘artistic integrity’. He’s a real loser. Despite being in his late 30s, he still lives with his mother and sister, borrowing money off them and scrounging from all he comes in contact with. This includes his best friend Mamoru (Yoshihiko Hosoda), who makes porn films with him for dodgy characters in order to make money, as well as the film actors’ school they’ve setup to exploit their students as well as for him to sleep with wannabe actresses. He’s a real jerk. Then one day two new students come to his school: Minami (Maya Okano), a naive and fresh girl from the countryside who wants to be an actress and Ken (Shugo Oshinari), a scriptwriter who has been living overseas. Tetsuo sees something in Minami and feels she has what it takes to be a real star and Ken has a brilliant script which could be the fantastic new project which would relaunch his career as a director, with Minami his muse. With the help of Kida (Denden), an unsavory film producer, they strive to turn this project into something tangible, but Minami’s ability starts to turn the heads of other film directors such as Kano (Kanji Furutachi) and Shinjo (Kanji Tsuda) and soon Tetsuo’s world starts to fall apart at the seams… Will Tetsuo’s past exploits catch up to him or will he be able to hold it all together and start afresh?

“…film making before anything? Keep it true to art? be idealistic? have a constant way of life? or be some kind of hopeless guy that do not know another way to live than give a damn about anything? This movie has all these premises and more. Also has very classic camera movements and solid low budget cinematography. You will see rookie actors; aspirants; old lowbrow glories; yakuza; all mixed in a parallel world of filming. Most actors want to play lead rolls or shine a bit in a well produced movie; now here all they are at the bottom so they are trying hard; some with their acting talent; some seducing; some utilizing the power that they have; all trying to succeed in a very difficult industry that devours all your dreams if your a naive. Is a battle; you win or you lose forever.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eVery good song and great finale.”