Young Rui feels nothing until Ama chats her up at a bar in Tokyo. Fascinated by his numerous piercings and his split tongue, she begins a relationship with him and body art. Upon meeting Ama's cold friend and artist, Shiba, she slips into a love traingle that's more a square: Ama (kind and needy),Shiba (cold and powerful) and the various piercings and tatoos she collects on her body.

The plot is nothing new, but perhaps the added factor of BDSM as a woman's sexual awakening is new? While on the street and in public, Ama is violent towards those who would hurt her (and "nice" under the sheets),she allows Shiba to love her only through violence and degradation. She also enjoys torturing herself and dreams of splitting her tongue to please Ama.

Love, sex, life and pain are all explored throughout. What does it mean to live a life? More importantly, what does it mean to live a life with a lover? How do we seperate desire from necessity? Is pain a marker of a life lived? All three main characters are struggling to find a meaning and connection. A revelation towards the end suggests even Ama was insecure about his place in the world, forcing Rui to confront her actions, and the relationships she has with both men.

The acting, mainly from the young cast, is fine, but nothing amazing. Shiba and Ama don't get enough time to develop more than the different facets of Rui they represent, as the movie is played through her eyes. Yuriko Yoshitaka (Rui),does well as the conflicted protagonist, but dips into the hysterical well too often towards climax (a common trait in Japanese performance) that may be off putting for many western viewers. Still, if you're a fan of body art and the lives of young Japanese Yankee, you'll probably have a blast with this.

This movie is about a girl falling in love with tongue piercing, tattoo, and binge drinking.

The movie starts with the girl meeting a guy called "Ama" in a club, who has a 'split tongue'. Being a whore she is, she sleeps with him that night, and they start going out. She really likes the lizard-like 'split tongue', so she gets her new boyfriend to take her to a tattoo/piercing parlor. There, she sees cool tattoos they offered, and wants to get one as well. Being a whore she is, she sleeps with the tattoo guy for payment. Then keeps going there for more sex and slowly getting the tattoo done.

Eventually, the tattoo is completed, and she loses purpose in life. What she takes up next is binge drinking. Then Ama suddenly died, and although she didn't give a crap about him and enjoyed getting banged by the tattoo guy every week, she loses her mind for an unknown reason. Then it turns out the tattoo guy probably raped and killed her boyfriend...

Yeah, the script is a joke. I think the lead character is supposed to be somewhat smart and slightly a rebel, but the actress who played it was totally unconvincing, and spoke like a really dumb "gyaru". The result of this godly combination of crappy script and actress is that the leading character is a dumb whore, and nothing more. She didn't know the name and age of the guy she lived with for months, and apparently didn't care who killed him.

Although the actor who played tattoo guy was somewhat good, this movie was a pointless waste of time. I have no idea what the director was trying to express in this film. Maybe it was just a softcore porn.

For those who've seen "Noriko's Dinner Table" and wondered what happened to the younger sister played by Yuriko Yoshitaka ('just a nameless girl, walking toward the center of the city'),it may come as no surprise to see her show up naked, tattooed, and pierced in this tale of middle-class urban ennui in the underground. From one dreamworld to another. She doesn't have the sexual maturity to make the S&M stuff in this film remotely erotic and the two guys she bounces between, two tattooed punks, while giving us a multi-layered view of that world, are little more than posers. Their poses do reach beyond stereotype and the film tries to be cool towards them, demonstrating a reasonable awareness of the subject matter, but it comes up short in execution. I like Yoshitaka a lot, think she is a promising young actress, but don't think she is suited for this role. Snakes and Earrings is far more modern and realistic/relatable than a CAT III film, probably because its story comes from a teen-aged girl's prize winning novel rather than the sexist fantasies of old men, but while the film has a contemporary world view it doesn't have the story punch necessary to elevate it much beyond voyeurism. For those just interested in seeing Yoshitaka naked there's plenty of that but it's not enough to make this film more than a guilty pleasure.