Villain (15)
Starring: Eri Fukatsu, Satoshi Tsumabuki
Friday 19 August 2011
Latest in Reviews
Related stories
On Facebook
Arts & Ents blogs
Brighton Fringe 2012: laughing through the blood, sweat and tears
It has been an emotional journey. The three weeks of intense activity that make up England's larges...
Disclosure: We’d never even been to a club when we made our first single
For most of us, reaching eighteen years of age opens up a new world for exploration, spontaneity and...
Something For The Weekend in London: May 25 – May 27
With 20+ degree weather expected to last all weekend in the capital, we'd be silly not to make the m...
No relation to the Richard Burton gangster flick of the early 1970s.
The Japanese coastal town where Lee Sang-il's melodrama is set seems to get more rainfall than Wales, a suitably dismal backdrop to the lives of quiet desperation it considers. Two lonely people, a taciturn construction worker (Satoshi Tsumabuki) and a shop assistant bachelorette (Eri Fukatsu) meet and fall in love, while the audience wonders if the former is actually the culprit in a recent roadside murder. The weird keening noises in his head seem to suggest that he is. The film's playing on our sympathy is compelling, though very slow, and bloats a running time already stretched by its examination of parental bereavement, remorse, emotional cruelty and the plight of the repressed Japanese male. A lot to process, and you feel the effort.
- 1 Grace Dent on Television: Harlots, Housewivs and Heroines - a 17th Century History for Girls, BBC4
- 2 One is nipping to Tesco: Jubilant Jubilee royals as seen by Alison Jackson
- 3 The London 2012 Festival: The greatest show of a great year
- 4 BANNED: The most controversial films
- 5 French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy calls for West to intervene in Syria
- 6 Observations: Literary lessons from N F Simpson - an absurdly good playwright
- 7 Free Range: Meet the designers of tomorrow
- 8 The Ten Best History Books
- 9 Ladyhawke: Asperger's and the anxious pop sensation
- 10 Cannes: Too much rain, too few women, but great movies
- 1 Mark Zuckerberg saved $111m by selling Facebook shares before stock slumped
- 2 Osborne adviser leaked budget information to Murdoch's man
- 3 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 4 Society: The only way is Finland
- 5 Schoolboy spiked brownies with cannabis in cookery class
- 6 Fat? Really? Olympic hope laughs off official’s jibe – but others aren’t amused
- 7 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...'
- 8 African monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV
- 9 Coke reveals its secret: It may need to carry a cancer warning
- 10 French in uproar over oral sex anti-smoking posters
Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.
Can you imagine a career in teaching?
Be inspired to teach - let real teachers show you how rewarding the job can be.
Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Ridley Scott: The most macho man in movies?
Gallic gourmets put France back on culinary map
The outsider: Margaret Howell
For men only: A pilgrimage to Mount Athos
Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?



Comments