Kamikaze Girls (2004)

Cautiously Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 下妻物語

Director: Nakashima Tetsuya

Writers: Takemoto Nobara, Nakashima Tetsuya

Cinematographer: Ato Masakazu

Composer: Kanno Yōko

Cast: Fukada Kyōko, Anna Tsuchiya, Miyasako Hiroyuki, Kiki Kirin, Okada Yoshinori

Nakashima’s highly stylised confection – all bright colours, quirky edits, and showy camera movements; relating the story of a rather unlikely friendship between a pair of 17-year-old girls, one a vapid loner who’s obsessed with bizarre and kinky Little Bo Peep-like outfits, and the other a member of a violent all-girl biker gang – proves to be a guilty pleasure whilst its images flicker before us, but is decidedly forgettable once they stop. Iain.Stott