International premiere | In Competition | ONLINE
Japan, 2025, 115’, Japanese
Directed by: Jojo Hideo
Screenplay: Mukai Kosuke
Cinematography (color): Watanabe Masaki
Editing: Hirai Kenichi
Music: Endo Koji
Producers: Fukase Kazumi, Akiyama Tomonori
Executive Producer: Fujimoto Itaru
Cast: Kitamura Takumi, Pistol Takehara, Ito Marika, Maiguma Katsuya, Kawai Yuumi, Yanai Yumena, Kubota Masataka
Date of First Release in Territory: March 20th, 2025
Summer in Japanese movies is often the time for festivals, fireworks and fun, but some films stress the season’s downsides. In Takahashi Masaya’s 2023
The Dry Spell city waterworks officials go around shutting off the water of non-payers – and feeling both sweaty and guilty in the sweltering heat.
The title of Jojo Hideo’s
A Bad Summer promises a similar mood and the film starts with a heel crushing a dead cicada, the insect whose noisy rasp is a traditional symbol of the Japanese summer – and its irritations.
That shot sums up the film’s explosive story, which is based on a novel by Somei Tamehito, about a shy, straight-arrow welfare department caseworker (Kitamura Takumi) who, in trying to do the right thing, heads down a dangerous path. The resulting complications unfold with a precision and rightness derived more from deep understanding of the characters than surfacy plot twists.
Also, despite the black comic tone underlying the proceedings, when emotions boil over or violence erupts the impact is as visceral as that shattering cicada in close-up.
Director Jojo was long a specialist in adult films before making his first straight feature, the 2020 teen drama
On the Edge of Their Seats. And the un-PC sexual dynamics of his 2022 relationship drama
Love Nonetheless, in which a nerdy bookstore owner fends off the attentions of a sassy high school girl, have their echoes in
A Bad Summer. But he navigates the film’s darker currents with assurance, just as he did in this year’s psychological thriller
Welcome to the Village.
We first meet the caseworker, Sasaki, dripping sweat when he visits a loutish client, Yamada (Pistol Takehara), who is collecting welfare payments due to an incapacitating hernia, but is suspiciously spry. A beady-eyed female colleague, Miyata (Ito Marika), tells Sasaki that Yamada is faking and urges action. “We are bulwarks against moral decay,” she tells him.
That decay is also within the welfare department itself. Another caseworker, the shifty Takano (Maiguma Katsuya), is pressuring a single-mom client, Aimi Hayashino (Kawai Yuumi), for sex. Miyata, however, is onto his game and enlists a reluctant Sasaki in her effort to get Takano fired.
But others are aware of this scandal in the making, including the canny Rika (Yanai Yumena), a club hostess who was once Aimi’s co-worker, and her ruthless, avaricious boss (Kubota Masataka).
Meanwhile, Sasaki starts to take more than a professional interest in Aimi and her toddler daughter, though not for the same reason as Takano. Instead, his motives seem to be pure and the wary Aimi begins to see him as a decent guy and not just another male exploiter. But his relationship with her carries its career-ending risks.
Expectedly, the summer goes bad for both of them as they get caught up in the boss’s devious schemes, building to a climax that goes beyond the surprising to the jaw-dropping. This is a gamble that could have ruined the film, but the character arcs click into place with a satisfying snap even in the midst of chaos. Jojo wins his bet.
Kawai Yuumi, who has quickly emerged as Japan’s best young actor, nails Aimi’s inscrutability, even to herself, and her vulnerability, which she movingly reveals. Kawai and the rest of the superlative cast help make
A Bad Summer as good a film as any in Jojo’s lengthy filmography.
GUEST:
JOJO Hideo, director
AKIYAMA Tomonori, producer
Jojo Hideo
Jojo Hideo (b. 1975) began shooting 8mm movies while a student at Musashino Art University. In 2003 he made his directorial debut with the pink film Ajimishitai Hitozumatachi, for which he won the Pink Grand Prix newcomer’s prize. His work has been featured in special retros and has won various honors. Jojo’s 2022 romantic comedy Love Nonetheless screened at the 24th edition of Udine FEFF. For the 27th edition of the festival Jojo has two films in competition: the horror/mystery Welcome to the Village and the dark drama A Bad Summer.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2008 – Siren X
2008 – The Homeless Is Junior High School Student
2009 – Rinko Eighteen
2012 – AV Idol
2018 – Shinjuku Punch
2022 – Love Nonetheless
2022 – To Be Killed by a High School Girl
2025 – A Bad Summer
2025 – Welcome to the Village