Shady (Kashi koi inu wahoe zuni warau)

UK Third Window Films Blu-ray

Mimpi B. and Izumi Okamura


A very interesting highschool girl drama turns horror about the friendship between good looking but strange
girl Izumi (Izumi Okamura) and the tall maybe not that handsome loner girl Puh or Misa Kumada (Mimpi B.).
A girl from their class, Aya, has disappeared without any explanation.
Izumi the former buddy to Aya now seeks the friendship from the least popular girl in the class, Misa.
Misa, is tormented by her feelings of awkwardness as she's much taller and bigger than the other girls, and
she's fittingly called Pooh (Nalle Puh) owing to her name Kumada, obviously with an Bear association in the
japanese language.
Misa is flattered and a bit taken in by Izumis beauty and they become buddies and also have some experimental
sexual contacts between them in a playful way. Teenagers testing.

R.I.P. Fish

BUT, there's almost always a But, Izumi is really intense, too intrusive and aggressive and Misa starts to be
afraid of her. Especially when her beloved Goldfish is killed during the care of Izumi, accidental or sadism?
She's also worried about her beloved pet bird Chunta, a budgie or a lorikeet, who's in the care of Izumi.
There may be something very wrong with the cute girl.

And this up to this point restrained teenage drama turns into Sion Sono territory horror-weirdness, well ...
The film still did show a lot of promise from young debut feature director Ryohei Watanabe and the girls did
their best, especially J-Pop singer Mimpi B who was really good in her part as the awkward Misa.
There's nothing wrong with Misa's/Mimpi's looks, except an uncool haircut and wee all know how cruel
school kids can be, they can smell feelings of awkwardness in a kid and the pack goes crazy with bloodlust.

anamorphic widescreen, 5.1 japanese with english sound. Extras: Interviews with 1. The Director (7 min)
who had made some short films before Shady and 2. with Mimpi B and Izumi Okamura (12 min, japanese
with subs) but i didn't find the theatrical trailer mentioned on the dvd sleeve.
Mimpi B. sings during the rolling of the credits


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