WINNER: Best Picture, Tokyo International Film Festival /Best Film, Best Director, Japanese Professional
Movie AwardsThirty
100 Yen Love invokes the freewheeling, gritty texture of a vintage 1970s New Hollywood movie.” -
Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter
Thirty-two-year-old Ichiko is a classic couch potato, a work-shy slob who spends most of her time playing
video games in the back room of the family’s fast-food counter. Tensions with her younger sister Fumiko
run high. When things finally blow, Ichiko moves out and takes a job in a 100-Yen store, the Japanese
equivalent of a dime store. She frequently cycles past an old boxing gym and develops a crush on Kano,
one of the men she sees training there. He has problems of his own and their eventual relationship is
pretty fraught, but it leads Ichiko to take up boxing herself.
We’re talking neo-noir, so this is a not a romantic fairy-tale with a built-in happy ending. All the clichés
fit: it’s “gritty,” “hard-boiled” and “down’n’dirty.” But it’s also funny, sexy and surprisingly dynamic
in its picture of dead-end lives. And it has a stupendous performance from the fearless Ando Sakura at
its core. Arai Hirofumi is also great as the boxer Kano, but it’s really Ando’s film: she does
deadbeat-coming-back-to-life better than anyone you’ve ever seen.
Tony Rayns
Vancouver International Film Festival