Every success have a reason behind, this movie showing how a perfect doll is produced. I seldom watch Japanese movie but think this one quite catch my eye, little slow but the storyline is interesting and very humanized.
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ks-6050025 September 2021
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laura_d-0168526 July 2020This movie definitely takes its time. I don't mind that at all. And if you like slow movies, this is definitely worth a watch.
It starts out as a comedy but just when I started to think that it would be a bit too crude or too simplistic to be funny for the whole movie, the movie turns more serious.
The chemistry between the characters, the main characters but also the side characters is great.
The story is basically about a relationship, between Ketsuo and Sokono, and they both turn out to not being open with each other. About what and why Ketsuo is not will be obvious from the beginning, but what is she not telling him?
I don't really get why so many people did not really care for this movie and gave it such low ratings. I enjoyed it and watched it in one go.
I mean, is it a movie that will rock your world? No. If that is the only reason to like a movie, don't watch this. But if you like slow movies like I do, and if you like movies that are a mix of funny and serious, then seriously give this a go. -
SandyCandy1524 December 2020Not sure how I feel about this movie... the opening scene is of a dead woman on top of her husband - dying after reaching orgasm during sex - giving her husband "one last gift" (I won't say more as not to ruin the film)... I feel like the director made three movies and just put them into one (1. creepy pervy film (think Gozu), 2. funny, wholesome film (think Sweet Bean), 3. sad, terminal illness romance film (think A Walk to Remember). However, I mostly got weird Pet Sematary vibes from this film... Basically, the main character, Tetsuo works at a sex doll factory creating sex dolls. He doesn't have much of a personality - maybe just wimpy and passive but also dutiful. The main character, Sonoko is the "ideal" Japanese wife - passive, submissive, ready to serve her husband whenever, cooks the best food, waits for him all night, doesn't speak much (every otaku/white-guy-obsessed-with-Japanese-culture's dream girl)... she's basically a living sex doll - alive only to be used to "help" others. There are so weird "hidden cam-style" scenes in this movie. Eg., two sex doll workers pretend to be prosthetics makers so they can make a mold of Sonoko's breasts, but only talking about groping her the entire time... there is an over emphasis on breasts in this movie... (creepy mommy issues vibes). At the end of the movie, Tetsuo seems like he's going to say something profound about his wife and says "people didn't know my wife's secret, which only I knew.. my wife was nice and horny." WTF??
I will not watch again. -
fionacvioletta22 August 2020This film is personal, a film by a woman that will certainly resonate with women everywhere & it feels real. It's not the grey sludge formula of Hollywood, all fast edits & flashy cliches, pre-digested junk food, that leave one feeling none the better. On the contrary, this is observational & all the better & both fun, funny, more intense, haunting & meaningful for that. It will stay with you for a long time afterward.
The writer & director, crafted a beautiful, often poetic, comedic tragedy (with the sting removed so that the real pathos is clear but never lachrymose) about love, sex & relationships.
The film takes a wry, nonjudgmental & warm look at the frailties that love brings & how women are loved but often nonchalantly (by those who one day may know better, with a few nudges along the way, as this film supplies). If your man takes you for granted, watch this with him.
The tone is tender, sharp, clever & everyone is sensitively, insightfully portrayed, beautifully drawn, even when short hand is necessary. Yuki is a great auteur whose future work I can't wait to see. The actors are also really impressive, & the lead role of Tasuo is so well portrayed, one flick of his eyes & one sees his soul. Brava Yuki Tanada. Brava. -
net_orders30 August 2022This is a tale of a sex doll business. The first act is mostly about a small time manufacturer of high-end sex toys constantly on the brink of failure. It is packed with manikin "nudity" (and, occasionally, what appears to be live models acting as dummies) as well as touchy-feely and other sophomoric silliness. There is a lot of running around inside of a small space (it appears to be an extended garage) used as a design and fabrication site. The business model (pun intended) evolves from best-guess abstract and gross design of dolls based on what a diminishing customer base might like (but does not) to the use of "realistic" molds from a figure model. The latter approach causes sales to sky rocket. Actress Yû Aoi plays the model. The second act is a story of the marriage between the doll designer and the now apparently retired figure model. It is loveless (the designer is more interested in his business than his wife) until the wife is diagnosed with an incurable disease. To absolutely no one's surprise, the dead wife "lives on" as an upgraded sex doll. The movie is way too long in part due to excruciating details of doll manufacturing processes. Lead actress Aoi very much looks the part, but is not all that convincing as she struggles to act the part. The director occasionally obtains some solid acting from others in the cast. Cinematography, lighting, and sound are okay. Subtitles are a bit busy. Not especially recommended. Viewed on streaming. WILLIAM FLANIGAN.
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This movie starts out more as a comedy, and then it changes. It becomes a romance where a couple marries and starts having issues. The woman had asked for a divorce because she has learned that stomach cancer, and she cannot have babies. When the husband finds out, his response is husband married to be with her, for not for children. Their relationship is healing but then it they learn she has terminal cancer.
Tetsuo is an art school graduate that goes for a job interview and discovers it is a company that makes sex dolls and he is being hired to help in the design. He is very innocent man, and extremely shy with an innocence about sex. He is not really excited about the job but he really wants some money, and that means a job, so he accepts. The staff of the company are welcoming and very excited when they learn he will take the job...guess they have been having a hard time finding someone to take the job.
He works with an older man on creating a new doll. When the owner of the company is presented the doll, he is not happy with the feel of the breasts. He considers the feel of the breasts to be important in a high-end sex doll, and tells them it has to be fixed. I am not sure but I think that Tetsuo may not have ever felt a woman's breasts. So, they hire a model to use to for a cast for the breasts. To try not to scare off the model they pretend to be working on breast implants, and are now wearing lab coats when she arrives. Tetsuo is left alone to put the casting material on, and he is very hesitant in the application. Afterwards he and the old man are talking together, and it is felt that Tetsuo should have a chance to feel real breasts so that he can better replicate that feel. They go back to the model and ask her if he can feel her breasts, and are shocked when she accepts. Again, Tetsuo is left alone to feel her breasts. He is very tentative/respectful. As he feels the texture of her breasts, we hear his thoughts of how wonderful they feel.
She leaves, but then Tetsuo realizes that she had left her earrings, and so chases after her, and amazingly finds her since he has to search so long. Next thing we see is Tetsuo, the older man, and the model, Sonoko, having a meal in a restaurant together.
We the see Tetsuo and Sonoko getting married. Tetsuo is so extremely nervous that his hands are shaking violently. When he is presented the rings, and, his hand shaking, he tries to put the ring on his finger, but it will not fit. Then Sonoko guides his hands to put the ring on her finger.
Tetsuo has not told Sonoko the he actually works for a sex doll company, and he is so scared to tell her thinking that he will lose her when she finds out. He distances himself from Sonoko because of his embarrassment. He often stays out late. You see many images of them walking apar. Sonko disappare for several days, and when she returns, Tetsuo confronts her. She tells him she has to leave for a while. When she comes back she insists Tetsuo tell and he first tells her that he does not work for a medical company but sex doll company. She is not phased at all by this news but pushes him more and he tells her had a single night affair. She then admits the same...she was so very lonely. We next see her come into their apartment and lay divorce paper on the table for him. He is flabbergasted. He tells her that it was all his fault, he wasted so much time, but she appears unphased. Tetsuo later learns that she has cancer. He arrives at her hospital room where he learns that she has stomach cancer and will lose ¾ of her stomach, but also cannot have children and she wants him to have a chance to have children. He tells her he did not marry her because he wanted to have children.
After this they are having a very supportive and loving relationship, but then learn that the cancer has spread and she only has a short time to live. They make the most of the time. Tetsuo can now discus with Sonoko his work, and he tells her he is having real problems with the new sex doll hole--she tells him that he can use her as a model. They do show a scene of him starting to draw her, and her embarrassment. Think that the last sex scene is where she dies in the enjoys an orgasm.
After her death, he continues working on the new doll using Sonoko as a model. You can tell how much of his soul, his love, he is putting into the doll. The people at the company are committed to supporting him in the effort. The boss tells Tetsuo that they will name the new doll Sonoko, and Tetsuo asks it be in all caps. It will be a special edition with a limited run of 100 dolls. They sell out very quickly, and becomes a legend.
There is a scene where the doll in on the floor, and soon it is Sonoko-the doll is the real Sonoko. They are being affectionate, but then she is a doll again. There is also a scene of him paging through all the pictures he drew of him.
The last scene he is on the beach and think of her. He thinks how people said she was perfect in every way and too good for him and he agrees. Then there then there is something that only he knows...nice and horny. With his shyness she was so good for him because she would take the initiative. -
PalmBeachG27 March 2023Yes, this J-Drama movie starts out as a comedy in true fashion of the Japanese humor that you cannot deny. Couldn't stop laughing as the ML takes this job to help design the perfect sex doll - not for any other reason except he needs money. Getting the breasts to feel just right were the challenge so he comes up with a new idea to accomplish that.
Later, the movie turns to sadness and includes spousal cheating, incurable illness with the death of his wife and how the couple fulfills their marriage in the last days of her life and how the sex doll turns out to replace her in the end. Of course the movie is sexy and also a bit odd at the same time . -
anta-baka22 October 2022Rather than repeat what has been said in other reviews, I want to point out the Toko Miura (Drive My Car) has a small, but important role. Tetsuo is lonely, not looking for an affair when he casually meets Hiroko (Toko Miura,) who drinks too much and becomes too frustrated with arcade games. Her emotional life seems a mess, and Tetsuo empathizes. After a few drinks and some Karaoke, he spends the night with Hirako. When they say goodbye, it is obvious and touching how lonely Hirako is. Sonoko later says loneliness is what drove her to infidelity -only once (one suspects alcohol also played a role.) But even when Tetsuo admits that he has cheated -only once - he does not confess to his own loneliness. Hirako, then, is like a kindred spirit and emblem to their loneliness, but has no one to return to and sort it out. In the hands of a lesser actor, Hirako may have been forgettable. But Toko Miura brings a well-crafted naturalness and humanity to her role, just as she did in Drive My Car. I wish we could have finally heard HER story, in this film too. In a few short scenes, she makes you care about her. Loneliness and reticence can erode love and destroy lives. That is something Hirako, Tetsuo, and Sonoko have in common.