This film is exotic. There is no other way to put it. I was turned off with the blatant product placement, but have to admit that even that was well done. I mean they put down the brand!

The cute and alluring girl has style and is the offspring of a marriage made in Osaka hell. Her grandmother mops and mocks and her friend out of nowhere is a dyke who probably crushing hard.

Laughter ensues.

Momoko Ryugasaki (Kyôko Fukada) is the daughter of a smalltime gangster (Hiroyuki Miyasako) that forges Versace brand and a lowlife woman. Momoko is smitten by the Rococo period and dresses in a Lolita style, with frilly dresses and embroidery bonnet. She is raised by her father since her mother divorced him to marry her gynecologist, and he has taught her how to perfectly embroider.

When Mr. Ryugasaki includes the Universal Studios brand in his products, he is forced to move to the rural Shimotsuma with Momoko to live in the house of her grandmother. Momoko decides to sell her collection of forged Versace and Universal Studios to make money to buy her expensive clothing. The rebel "yanki" Ichigo Shirayuri (Anna Tsuchiya) visits Momoko to buy clothes and soon they begin the most unlikely friendship.

"Shimotsuma monogatari", a.k.a. "Kamikaze Girls" is an absolutely original and surreal movie. The definition of department stores and groups in the Japanese pop culture is awesome. Unfortunately I found this movie too related to the Japanese sub-culture for youths, very different from the Western one, and I did not enjoy as much as I expected. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Having recently enjoyed director Tetsuya Nakashima's "Memories of Matsuko" I was keen to see "Kamikaze Girls" so I was pleased when it was television so soon after the the other film. I was not disappointed as it was a delight from start to finish... even if the opening scene did suggest the ending would not be too happy.

The film opens with Momoko, a girl in a frilly dress, being hit by another vehicle as she rides along on a scooter, as she flies through the air expecting to die she says good bye to her friends and family before we go back in time to find out just how she came to be there. Young Momoko's father is a fairly incompetent member of the Yakuza who makes a living selling fake designer goods until he annoys the wrong people and has to leave town and live in the countryside. In order to make money to pay for the Rococo clothing she loves so much Momoko places an advert in a magazine to sell her father's remaining stock. The advert is answered by Ichigo, a biker girl who is the opposite of everything Momoko is; aggressive, violent and worst of all dressed in clothes from the local supermarket. Ichigo is most impressed with the goods Momoko is selling and is shocked by the low prices being charged. The two girls form an unlikely friendship which leads the two girls to places neither would have expected themselves to be.

Kyôko Fukada and Anna Tsuchiya are fantastic as Momoko and Ichigo bringing the viewer into their unfamiliar world. The director has creating a surreal world where the colours aren't quite natural and where flashbacks occur as psychedelic animations. The only negative comment I can make about this film is that the English subtitles on the version shown on the television weren't the easiest to read.