Review of I Hate But Love

I HATE BUT LOVE (NIKUI AN-CHIKUSHOU). Viewed on Streaming. Restoration = six (6) stars; sound = five (5) stars; music = five (5) stars; subtitles = three (3) stars; cinematography = two (2) stars. Director Koreyoshi Kurahara tries his hand at a road picture involving a television interviewer (who is ill equipped to deal with overnight fame), his manager/nanny (who is sexy, sexually repressed, and manic-depressive to boot), and a classic Jaguar sports convertible (whose top seems to be nonexistent and eventually meets an unfortunate end). Kurahara fills the first third of his film with quirky and amusing turns (including a unique alarm clock). But when the Director goes on the road, things quickly become repetitious, unimaginative, drawn out, predicable, and just pain boring. Top-billed actor Yuujirou Ishihara turns in a wooden (and forgettable) performance as the TV star and serves mainly as a backboard for scene-stealing actress Ruriko Asaoka who plays his control-freak manager. Asaoka effectively shares top billing with the sports car while proceeding to histrionically devour most of the scenery. It's quite a sight! The convertible is often driven/parked in the pouring rain sans top. Miraculously, the water does not seem to impact it's lush interior or the electronics in and under the dash! (Dousing the principals with water also occurs in other scenes throughout the film.) Cinematography (wide screen, color) is exceedingly substandard (and, perhaps, the worse yet to be exhibited in a modern Japanese film from a major studio). Many shots are out of focus, blurry/foggy or both (this does not seem to be due to poor restoration, as other shots are razor sharp). The majority of moving vehicle scenes (including rear-screen projections) are unsteady and jerky to the point of annoyance. Front-facing traveling vehicle shots are also filled with road dust from the leading camera truck that can partially obscure the vehicle! Music is okay except for irritating jazz riffs for the sake of jazz. Especially ludicrous are scenes of night-club "dancing" by the principals to wild jazz on the sound track! Sound effects are mostly unimaginative: every vehicle squeals the same way when stopping or turning (chronically under inflated tires?); most vehicle engines sound about the same; etc. Looping, however, is fine. Subtitles need a major grammatical scrubbing. They are way too long and not especially accurate. Signs/writings are at least partially translated. Song lyrics are translated. Badly dated Nikkatsu Studio programmer. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.