A Spoiling Rain

The pink picture genre has already seen its best days. Similarly, soft porn director Kutani is now unemployed and busy collecting rent arrears. This leads him to screenwriter Iseki, who is also not spoilt with work. To escape the pouring rain, he invites him round for a few drinks and the two men begin to pour their hearts out. Kutani tells of the death of his former lover, a Pink Picture actress, who put an end to the tragedy of her life in a traditional double suicide with her director. It is only late, and to their great surprise, that the two realise that they have a great deal in common. Together, they reflect on past events, admit their past mistakes and, drunk on drinks and grief, weep for the failures of the past. The two are probably not among the most exemplary representatives of their gender and ruefully realise the consequences of their destructive behaviour for themselves and, above all, for others.

This is not the first time that director Haruhiko ARAI has explored the explicit depiction of sex on the big screen. His passionate end-time love story It Feels So Good was shown at Japannual in 2020 and in his new film he goes one step further. In addition to the intense conversations between the two male protagonists, it is the extensive sex scenes that are given the most space. The actress Honami SATŌ is up to the task, but already has some experience in films such as Ride or Die or Sexual Drive. She appeared in Hideo Jōjō's Love Nonetheless at Japannual in 2022. The men in need of talking are played by Gō AYANO and Tasuku EMOTO. Emoto was already in his element in Arai's It Feels So Good, as well as in Shape of Red (both Japannual 2020). The busy Ayano enjoys acting for Michihito FUJI (Hard Days, 2023 and A Family, 2020, both on Netflix), but is most notably the lead actor in Let's Go Karaoke, to be seen at this year's Japannual.