Comments by Wong Lung Hsiang

Director: Kobayashi Masahiro
Cast Ishibashi Ryo, Ken Ogata, Otsuka Nene
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
Genre: Drama
Year Released: 2000
Runtime 86 min
Rating: **½ (our of four stars)

This is a film noir about a bleak, snowy town where almost all of the husbands are facing the similar situation like David Morse in Dancer In The Dark (due to the economic recession in late '90s) (and some of their wives are really cruel). However, the story lacks the minimal plausibility that we could found in typical film noirs, so I would rather consider it as a fantasy of all those male escapists:

(1) becomes a killer;

(2) be killed;

(3) sex.

Yes, sex and death, in this Fargo-like town.