Kabukicho Love Hotel

 

Hiroki brought his own style and sensibility to such films as April Bride and The Lightning Tree, while drawing career-peak performances from his female stars. But compared with his earlier, bolder indie films, he was working in a more commercial vein. 

 

Kabukicho Love Hotel (Sayonara Kabukicho) marks a welcome return to his indie form, if with new, audience-friendly twists. 

 

Set mostly in the titular love hotel of the English title, in the heart of Shinjuku’s Kabukicho entertainment district, the film is an ensemble drama of a type that goes back to Grand Hotel (1932), revolving around a young hotel manager, Toru (Sometani Shota), who regards the job as a temporary fall from grace. As he is forever reminding all and sundry, he once worked for a five-star hotel and will again. First, though, he has to get through an eventful shift. 

 

Working from a script by Nakano Futoshi and Arai Haruhiko, the latter who also wrote Vibrator and It’s Only Talk, Hiroki films this shift with a punchy dry humor and no sentimentality whatsoever. At the same time, he doesn’t turn the film into a frantic screwball comedy.

 

Instead, he views the hotel’s denizens, staff and guests alike, as distinct individuals, not types, with an affection that is never forced. His approach may seem low-key and leisurely compared to the over-heated, highly plotted local norm, but in the end it hit me harder – I cried two tears for every laugh. 

 

Toru begins the above-mentioned shift in a bad mood, since he has quarreled with his musician girlfriend, Saya (Maeda Atsuko), who is on the verge of signing a deal with a record label and leaving her scuffling days behind her. Toru is understandably concerned that he will end up on the discard pile as well. First, however, duty calls, beginning with a porn film shoot that requires his attention – and renews his once-close acquaintance with the star (Hinoi Asuka). 

 

Meanwhile, Heya (Lee Eun-woo), a Korean call girl, is working her last day at the hotel. Soon after, she will leave Japan for home, a development that upsets her boyfriend Chong-su (Roy from pop group 5tion, aka Son Il-kwon), though her nice-guy manager (Taguchi Tomorowo) is more understanding.

 

The hardworking hotel cleaning lady (Minami Kaho) also has reason to celebrate. Her live-in boyfriend (Matsushige Yutaka) will soon be free of a crime he committed years ago, since the statute of limitations will expire. But a dogged female detective (Kawai Aoba) has taken an interest in the case, though she comes to the hotel as a guest, not a cop. 

 

Finally, a talent scout (Oshinari Shugo) lures a cute runaway teen (Wagatsuma Miwako) to the hotel with the intent of adding her to his stable of underage hookers. She seems almost too easy a mark, until she tells him her story. As usual, Hiroki works marvels with his female lead. Maeda, in her films to date, has mostly played to the cute, likable, approachable image she cultivated in AKB48, the all-girl pop group she once headlined. Hiroki takes her out of this comfort zone, in a risky scene that could have easily been cringe-worthy, but instead becomes unexpectedly affecting. 

 

Also good in quite a different way is Lee, who reveals her character’s isolation and ordinary humanity with a transparency that charms and sears. No hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliches here; of all the non-natives I’ve seen playing fish-out-of-water roles in Japanese films, she is the most convincing. 

 

As the lead, Sometani does his familiar tired-of-it-all turn, if with comic twists that makes his manager amusingly self-deluded, instead of merely annoying. But the dilemmas and personalities of those around him are more interesting. Check into Kabukicho Love Hotel to find out why.