Shimotsuma Monogatari (Kamikaze Girls) Special Edition (Japan Version) DVD Region 2

Kamikaze Girls opens in spectacular fashion, with too-eccentric-for-words high school teen Momoko (Kyoko Fukaka, Onmyoji 2) riding a moped when she is suddenly broad-sided by a delivery truck and goes flying through the air in slow motion. But wait, this scene actually occurs toward the end of the film, so Momoko freezes time and takes us back to the beginning. We learn that she was a strange child who enjoyed being alone, and is the product of a failed gangster father and a hard-drinking mother who quickly dumps her husband to marry the doctor who delivered Momoko, before going on to enter a beauty pageant while in her 40s.

The father is at first successful, selling knock-off Versace products in the streets; that is, until he decides to merge one knock-off product with another, incurring the wrath of the original owners, thus earning his loser tag and getting chased out of town by the Yakuza. Father and daughter end up in Grandma's house in the countryside, where young Momoko learns to love isolation and indulges in frilly dresses in the style of a bygone French era using money she cons from her father. Into Momoko's contented life rides female bike gang member Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya), a tough talking, cussing, and spitting girl. The two girls become reluctant friends - or actually, Ichiko keeps finding reasons to forcibly conscript Momoko's services.

The rest of the film is just as random in nature, with Momoko breaking through the fourth wall whenever she feels like it, such as to shorten some of Ichiko's gang stories. Meanwhile, Momoko continues to daydream of her beloved Rococo period, from which she has patterned her life (not to mention wardrobe). Such is Kamikaze Girls, a film that can't possibly be taken seriously. How else to explain director Tetsuya Nakashima's many off-the-wall techniques, such as Momoko flying through the air whenever appropriate, or background characters indulging in CGI price checks?

As a comedy, the script works more than it doesn't, offering up plenty of laughs throughout much of the film. And although Momoko's oddball behavior is, well, odd in the beginning, you quickly get used to it, and soon seeing a Japanese girl walking around in strange dresses barely registers. The same for Ichiko, whose tough girl act always manages to be amusing, if only because it provides such a stark contrast to the emotionally unavailable Momoko. One of the film's best scenes is in the beginning when a young Momoko dishes out life advice to her hopeless mother.

Ichiko, on the other hand, is quick-tempered and violent, and sees no harm in head-butting the genteel Momoko on a whim, or abducting her into the city and forcing her to play Pachinko - which, much to her chagrin, Momoko realizes she's a wiz at. Kamikaze Girls does get a bit heavy toward the end, but it's nowhere near the left field melodrama you find in most Korean comedies. On the whole, there's a very good balance to the film, thanks to writer/director Tetsuya Nakashima, who uses CGI sporadically but effectively, and never overdoes the "fourth wall" gags.

What really makes the film work are the excellent performances from its two female leads. Kyoko Fukada is especially good as the off-kilter Momoko, and equaling appealing is Anna Tsuchiya as the faux bad girl. The two young women have excellent chemistry, and their scenes together are what make Kamikaze Girls as good as it is. The only real shortcoming with the film is a noticeable lack of emotional ambition. The film really doesn't have all that much to say, with most of its highlights justified by either its quirks or technical conceits. There are no real truths to be gleaned from Ichiko's quest to thank her gang leader/mentor, or Momoko's sudden realization that she's pretty good at this whole embroidery thing.

Ultimately, Kamikaze Girls is a highly entertaining film with great comedy throughout, but maybe its problem is that it never found much time to say anything more, in-between the laughs. Then again, if the film has no greater ambition than to be light hearted and, on occasions even touching, it certainly succeeds with flying colors.

Movie Grade: 3.5 out of 5 stars

By Nix - BeyondHollywood.com