7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A grisly murder occurs in Maruyama-cho, Shibuya, Tokyo — a love hotel district — a woman was found dead in a derelict apartment. Whilst the police investigate, the story interweaves with that of Izumi, the wife of a famous romantic novelist whose life seems just a daily repetition without romance. One day, to break away from the loveless monotony, she decides to follow her desires and accepts a job as a nude model enacting sex in front of the camera. Soon she meets with a mentor and starts selling her body to strangers, whilst at home she hides behind the facade that she is still the wife she is supposed to be.
Starring: Miki Mizuno, Makoto Togashi, Megumi Kagurazaka, Kazuya Kojima, Satoshi NikaidoForeign | 100% |
Drama | 43% |
Erotic | 13% |
Romance | 5% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Japanese: LPCM 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Screened at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, Japanese director Sion Sono's "Koi no tsumi" a.k.a. "Guilty of Romance" (2011) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include the film's original UK theatrical trailer; new and exclusive interview with actress Megumi Kagurazaka; and a new audio commentary by film critic and festival curator Jasper Sharp. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".
Testing
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Sion Sono's Guilty of Romance arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment.
Detail and clarity are very good, while contrast levels are stable and convincing. The close-ups convey excellent depth and the panoramic daylight scenes boast pleasing fluidity. The color-scheme, however, is very unusual, and I wonder if the black levels are accurate. If they are, then the warm and airy look the film has was obviously intended to compliment the classical soundtrack, which makes the graphic sex scenes and everything else that takes place in the film look quite bizarre. Since I have not seen the film theatrically but the overall color nuances look accurate, I am going to assume that the black levels are also accurate. Lastly, there are no traces of post-production sharpening or denoising. Banding, aliasing, and ringing do not plague the high-definition transfer either. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).
There is only one audio track on this Blu-ray disc: Japanese LPCM 2.0. For the record, Eureka Entertainment have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.
The loseless track boasts a good range of nuanced dynamics that allow the classical music score to shine, but do not expect it to test the muscles of your audio equipment. The dialog is also crisp, clean, stable, and easy to follow. There are no problematic sync issues, distortions, pops, or audio dropouts to report in this review. The English translation is competent.
The third and final film in Sion Sono's 'Hate Trilogy' is something of a contemporary noir picture that slowly morphs into a horror thriller, which asks some important social and moral questions. The film, however, climaxes without having anything meaningful to say, and does not engage the viewer like the other two films in the trilogy, Love Exposure and Cold Fish, do. Nevertheless, the cast is uniformly excellent, with Makoto Togashi a standout as the cynical Mitsuko Ozawa. RECOMMENDED (but see the other two films in the trilogy first).
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