Helter Skelter (2012)

Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: ***, plastic surgery, drama
Cast: Sawajiri Erika, Terajima Shinobu, Omori Nao, Ayano Gou, Mizuhara Kiko, Arai Hirofumi, Suzuki Anne, Terajima Susumu, Momoi Kaori, Aikawa Sho, Harada Mieko, Kubozuka Yusuke,
Synopsis: Lilico has gone under full-body plastic surgery and has become the most famous model in Japan, but all that falseness has also brought misery. Nothing lasts forever and so the surgery has begun to give backlashes and the new rival in beauty industry promises to ruin her little happiness she has left.
Rating: 5/5
I have not read the manga itself, but as much as I have heard, then it is a bit shallower than manga, but I really enjoyed the movie. It contains sex, drugs, violence, bad language and it is the closest thing to porno that I have ever seen and yet it was able to captivate me because of the amount of different feelings that you will get from this movie is huge. Each second was really interesting for me. But I admit that I would not let any person under age 16 watch it.. never..

No matter how hated or scandalous Sawajiri Erika is she is a brilliant actress. Everyone still thinks that she is beautiful and great actress. I think she is one actress who might do whatever she wants and it all will be forgiven, because her acts in the past have made it possible to act in movies like this. Would you imagine Kitagawa Keiko or Aragaki Yui in a role like that? Of course not, because many have said and I think so too, that Sawajiri Erika was acting as herself in many scenes.

Lilico has done full-body plastic surgery. As there is almost everything fake about her and that has

brought her enormous fame, but it has also made her soul empty. Everybody loves her but at the same time no one really loves her. "What do they love - I even have not met them or talked to them". Even now I am not sure if she was the victim or the culprit. She is selfish, does not care of other people's feelings and wants to be the best, nr. 1 forever, but at the same time she is nothing, just trying to please everyone, the sadness and emptiness are killing her!

That's why I felt sorry for her while hating her. Beauty and fame do not bring happiness especially when everything is fake - it is just a curtain before the theater stage. Fake creates fake and that's the way it is. Lilico gave people the fake they wanted and she got the fake response to it too, but you can see how she was actually looking for something real like true love and life without lies, but these things were already impossible for her. Her falseness was explained really simply "Beautiful on the outside, but eaten by the bugs inside".

The scariest part of the movie was when I found myself a little similar to Lilico. I have seriously nothing similar to her, but in some way I understood her and what she was going through. It is so strange that even though the movie shows how fake Lilico was, it also shows how fake our society is - especially woman's beauty - fake eye-lashes, contacts, nails, make-up, push-ups, hair-extensions and simple beauty injections/surgeries - they are all really everyday-ish things.

People have become so obsessed with outer beauty, that it stops being beautiful and it is really ironic when these kind of people are criticizing how others are fake. I am not against beauty products or surgeries, but I think that each thing has it's limits and sometimes people are the prettiest when they are natural. Lilico says "Beauty makes you strong", but I do not think so - being beautiful gives you more confidence, but it does not bring you more strength.

The only people Lilico really needs to have by her side are assistant Hada Michiko  and her make-up artist Kin-chan. With out them she would not have survived. But Hada-san was really weird character. She was hopelessly in love with Lilico, but sometimes she loved to stab her back. Then again she was not a lesbian, because she had younger boyfriend Shin. Shin is acted by Ayano Go and I really did not recognize him in the movie. Hada-san is used by Lilico as personal slave, who is treated like trash and then spilled over with "presents". I think that with Hada and Shin, Lilico's worst personality traits came out and it was soooooooooo sick! I almost vomited several times because of her actions.

In the end, I think that the most horrible character in the movie was Mama. Saying that Lilico is her creation and the real girl Lilico used to be is nothing. Using someone only for money.. and then ruining the original agreements for what Lilico was able to cope with all that hard work..
I think it is one of a kind movie and it is exactly "helter skelter" aka "total chaos". Even when the time has passed, I am fascinated by everything in this movie and I seriously want to know how it is shown in Japan, but at the moment my bowl of chips got empty, so only thing to say is "WATCH IT and tell me what you thought of it" :)

SPOILER-review: The end was so scary! The moment when she killed herself was so horrible and sad at the same time. For a moment everyone stopped and watched, but then they continued to take pictures - reminds me how people are now making photos and uploading them to internet before calling help. When person makes a suicide in front of you, YOU CALL AMBULANCE! -.- And then the movie went on and I found out that "HOLY SH*T! THAT WAS ALL A PLAN!!!" O.o but I really was screaming in the end "F*** THAT B***H WON'T DIE!!" (I was so scared that I was even unable to replace the words as I usually do..)

Surely Someday (2010)

Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: drama, life&death, friendship, yakuza
Cast: Koide Keisuke, Katsuji Ryo, Ayano Gou, Suzuki Ryohei, Muro Tsuyoshi, Konishi Manami, Yokota Eiji, Yoshida Kotaru, Endo Kenichi, small roles: Inoue Mao, Otake Shinobu, Tsumabuki Satoshi, Ueto Aya (cameo), Oguri Shun
Synopsis: Five childhood friends (Takumi, Kyohei, Kazuo, Shuto, Yuki) form a rock band to perform in the upcoming cultural festival. Once the festival is cancelled, they threaten to  blow up the school. Even though the adults agree with their terms, they are unable to stop the homemade bomb. Three years later fate brings them together in order to help Kazuo, who had joined the yakuza, search for the prostitute they used to know and the 300 million yen she stole from him.
Rating: 4/5
It is Oguri Shun´s first directed movie. I had my prejudice because of Oguri Shun, but believe me -

 I think I have never misunderstood someone as much I have him and his talent. This is a different style of movie - I think that it has many great things put together - music, fun and serious underground. Mostly I like it because it is another movie where absolutely everything is related to  each other.
I do not have much to say about each character, so I will mention them later. The movie shows their life 3 years after the bomb incident and also there are scenes from their memories of the school time and from childhood. All they really wanted to do was to perform at cultural festival, well in the childhood Takumi just wanted to meet Misa and know more about her. I know that their way of handling things was wrong, but even more I think that many things just ran together.

The main person who made things to flow, was Takumi - he had a difficult relationship with his father due to ruining his career. Also Takumi was the one who came up with the bomb idea, but of course he did not want anything to do with gun powder in it. Koide Keisuke is amazing in this role. I feel like he gets hotter with years and I love his singing in the movie. Kyohei is the virgin, who makes Yuki put some gunpowder into the bomb - that gives him scruples for the three years as no one has spoken to Yuki since then.  There was only one minus of the story, which was connected to Kyohei´s character. The scene where he was made to "suck it", was filmed in a wrong way and actually Kyohei should have had horrible remorse and feeling of dieing (he a little bit had, but not enough). I have seen one film where the same kind scene is and it is filmed so well that it makes you very sick - besides in that movie the character decides to kill himself and the one who made him do it, because his remorse did not allow to live anymore.

 Like you understood, Yuki was the one who made the bomb - he is the least shown in the movie. Nothing more to say about Kazuo than he did not thought enough and really made excuse out of his sister. Shuto was aiming to become a real musician and all women fell for him by having a eye contact with him for 5 seconds - it happened to me through computer screen too, because Ayano Gou has sooooo beautiful eyes!!! One really important character is Misa who is connected to guys for years. Her story is so sad, because all she wanted was happiness and that someone could love her. Stupid Ijima (crazy yakuza boss) ruined her life.
At some points I was screaming that it cannot just happen so (A bit similar to "Troubleman), it is horrible when someone does not have luck at all and at the same time he is very lucky to survive everything.

The OST of the movie is great and you can see that Oguri Shun had thought through every single thing in it and that made it really good. You can feel that it was not something that was made for fun, but that it was serious work after long time thinking and organizing. I like the fact that the filming and the whole movie was kept in secret until it was finished and ready to show to viewers - that shows that Oguri Shun did not want to fail with it. It was a smart move to take widely-known actors like Inoue Mao, Tsumabuki Satoshi, Otake Shinobu, Ueto Aya into minor roles and even Oguri Shun himself acted for 30 seconds as a policeman.
I recommend to watch this movie when the possibility arises, because it is great.