AKA : Oh! My Buddha | Shikisoku zenereishon
Year: 2009
Country : Japan
Language : Japanese
Subtitle(s) : English [English subtitles by Jeanette Amano]
Film Genre : Comedy
IMDB : The Shikisoku Generation
Links :
DVD Source : DVD9 from chochoc
Ripper : gandarloda
Video Format : AVI - XviD - 2 pass
Video Bitrate : 1252 kbps
Aspect Ratio : 1.913 : 1
Resolution : 704 x 368
Audio Format : AC3
Audio Bitrate : 448 kbps
Video Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Frame Rate : 23.976 fps
Director : Tomorrowo Taguchi
Cast : Daichi Watanabe, Kazunobu Mineta, Shigeru Kishida, Asami Usuda, Chiemi Hori, Lily Franky
Plot/Synopsis
"Actor/director Taguchi Tomorowo’s second feature tells a sexual coming-of-age story about an average, if extraordinarily excitable, teenage boy. The year is 1974 and the setting is Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital. Since Taguchi was a teenager at the same time and, like the hero, had a major fixation on Bob Dylan, the film has an autobiographical element, as well as a warm glow of nostalgia. (The novel on which the film is based, however, is by Miura Jun.) What sets Oh, My Buddha! apart from the many similar seishun eiga (“youth films”) in Japan by similarly nostalgic middle-aged directors, is that, instead of trying idealize his youthful self (or rather his fictional stand-in), Taguchi gives us a hero who is dopey, gawky and sex-besotted in the extreme. At the same time, this hero, Jun (Watanabe Daichi), is not a comic caricature, though his adventures, including the romantic and erotic, are mostly played for laughs. He is rather an average middle-class kid in whom many a male audience member will see his idiotic adolescent self, whether he wants to admit it or not. Jun attends a Buddhist high school, which may sound New Age-y, but the black- uniformed student body is universally bored by the chanting and other religious rigamarole that is being crammed down their throats. Instead, Jun and two of his pals become obsessed with a plan for vacationing on an island known for its “free sex.” But when they finally arrive for their three-day stay (all they can evidently afford), they find themselves in an ordinary youth hostel, managed by a welcoming, worldly-wise hippie who calls himself Hige Godzilla (Bearded Godzilla, Mineta Kazunobu). Promisingly, though, one of their fellow guests is the sweet, curvy, easy-going Olive (Usuda Asami) - or “free sex” personified. When she learns that Jun is a guitar player and song writer - and asks him to sing and write something for her - his hopes soar. Oh, My Buddha! wouldn’t be a comedy if Jun’s hopes weren’t dashed (though not completely). It also wouldn’t be a seishun eiga if he didn’t also find himself attracted to Kyoko (Ishibashi Anna), his pretty, virginal classmate since childhood, to whom he can barely speak: pure-hearted puppy love of this sort is a genre staple. The film, though, is light on cliches, dense with close, funny observations about its period and characters. You don’t have to be a Japanese of Taguchi’s generation to understand Jun’s growing pains, which are universal. It may make you wish, though, that you had taken up the guitar, a peerless seduction tool, even in the hands of a teenage goof. Mark Schilling"
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