Customer Reviews

Love My Life

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I watched this movie today. It is a good movie, not fantastic but nice enough. I agree with another reviewer who said the first part of the movie and the rest are very different, almost like another movie. The beginning of the movie is a sweet depiction of the relationship between the two twenty something year old women. In the middle it is less frothy and has more conflict and angst. I won't mention the ending; I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone.

If you are looking for steamy and graphic sex scenes you won't find that here. This movie reminds me of our lesbian movies of 10 or 20 years ago. It is more simple and innocent than the usual fare today. Knowing nothing of lesbians in Japan I don't know whether this movie is groundbreaking or usual. I wish there was an interview with the writers and directors of Love My Life and perhaps a documentary on lesbian life in Japan. It would be helpful to watch this movie in the context of GLBT life in Japan.

The extras on the DVD are few. They include deleted scenes, without subtitles and a Japanese trailer.

Eri is a serious, career oriented young woman who spends most of her time with her nose in a book studying to become a lawyer. Her younger friend Ichiko is quite a bit bubblier and fun loving, but possesses a gift for language and translation. While they could not be more different personality wise, something clicks between the two young women and they become quick friends after meeting each other at a dance club. However, this friendship is not quite the type found in such films as Kamizake Girls. Instead, Eri and Ichiko are lovers and during the time they have known each other their affection for each other has grown quite deep. However, besides a gay friend named Take, the young women have not revealed to anyone their relationship.

Ichiko takes the first step and introduces Eri to her father. She believes that because her father is a literary liberal that he will be quite open to her and Eri's relationship and she is quite right. However, she learns a bit more than she bargained for when she learns not only is her father gay, but that her deceased mother was a lesbian. Apparently her father and mother were best friends and decided to marry after both of them broke up with their significant others. They did not "love" each other in the "traditional" sense, but they wanted a child, so Ichiko was born. Eri's family is a more rigid and she is hesitant to speak out. What will become of the two lovers?

Although I have watched such films as Nakajima Takehiro's Okoge and Hashiguchi Ryosuke's A Touch of Fever and Like Grains of Sand which deal with the subject of male homosexuality. Love My Life is only the second film that I have watched on the topic of lesbianism in Japan. While the film's subject is quite promising, the execution falls pretty flat. The film opens well when it deals with issues such as "coming out" and introducing one's same sex lover to one's family, but other matters are handled rather ham-fisted such as the general repugnance felt by the general populace towards gays and lesbians. Also, the films subject matter derails quite unexpectedly somewhere in the middle of the film and I felt I was watching a completely different film. Love My Life is enjoyable, but, in my opinion, Shindo Kaze's film Love/Juice is a better film dealing with similar themes.

This is a very interesting movie. It is not what I expected, but there were few interesting scenes that I've enjoyed. Overall, I like this movie. Thank you.

Well this is no Hollywood movie by any means but its a cute movie all the same. I can relate to this movie in some ways which is why I loved it. I am more like Eri, (Yes, I'm female) the serious one. My girlfriend is the happy, bouncy one like Ichiko. Ok, maybe not that bouncy but pretty close. Lol Our personalities are very different, but we still click and we love each other. Over all I think the movie was real. At least to me. Some say its a little flat but it does tug at the heart strings a bit. So I say take it for what it is, a cute movie about two girls in love.

A Japanese film about a lesbian couple. That's different ! Unfortunately, even though I found the relationship between Ichiko and her father rewarding, the one between her and Eri felt superficial. Rei Yoshii's enactment of her character verged on "Hello Kitty" with way too much wide-eyes and innocence for a lesbian already out of her closet. The role of Eri, on the other hand, was intriguing and although Asami Imajuku infused it with a sense of naturalism and confidence, the focus on her was relegated to the background too much. The portrayal of two lesbians in an intimate relationship was rather antiseptic (the opening sequence with the back-and-forth candy was neither erotic nor sensual, but more like two immature girls experimenting with something weird and forbidden). There was also an odd sense of holding-back by Yoshii whenever the plot called for a display of same-sex desire; and when she and Imajuku finally get to express mutual physical pleasure, the tenor lacked passion.

I must say, this movie depicted one of society's flaws in an enjoyable way. In my opinion, this was a top movie in its category. I enjoyed more than "Spider Lilies" and "Saving Face." I highly recommend this movie.

Cute, bouncy movie about two young lesbians in Japan who decide to come out to their families. One girl has a pretty easy time of it, and in fact gets one upped by her dad when he happily returns the favor of her honesty with some revelations of his own. The other girl has a grumpy dad and more of a problem with the whole thing. But things never get too depressing, and in fact it's easy to believe from the overall fun, upbeat tone that "Love My Life" was adapted from a Japanese manga series, the Japanese version of comic books. Pretty innocent overall, this movie would probably get a PG-13 here in the states if not for our manic paranoia about gay subject matter and even fleeting nudity. Extras consist of a few deleted scenes (without English subtitles, unlike the film itself) and a nice selection of trailers highlighting other interesting-looking fringe movies. "Love My Life" isn't very memorable, but one can do a lot worse.

Love My Life is an adorable story about two college students who fall in love. Ichiko, the younger, is an emotional girl who loves books and people; Eri is an aspiring lawyer with a more serious temperament. The first half of the movie explores their families and friends, while the second half is about a rift that develops between the two and how they find each other again.

Love My Life is not a perfect movie. There are a few over the top moments that are difficult to believe, and some acting is a little weak. But the movie is redeemed by its incredible energy. It reminds you of how good it can be to be alive, hence the title, and how enjoyable things can be. This movie, while not life-changing, is fun and watching it makes you want to have fun, something everyone needs to be prodded into doing now and then.

I'm not reviewing the content of the film here, just the DVD authoring. The subtitles are hard-coded onto the video stream, not on a switchable subtitle track. The US licensor/manufacturer just got the English-subtitled "film festival" print of this film and ripped it straight to disk. Part of the point of DVD technology was multiple switchable language tracks and subtitle streams. The manufacturer was just lazy and took the fast-track in this case. I guess getting the original print and the subtitle script and doing it properly was too much work for them. Why bother releasing it if it's going to be a half-baked attempt?

Another perpetrator of this kind of laziness is Viz Media with their "Kamikaze Girls" US release.