Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageBody Drop Asphalt (2000)
Director: Junko Wada
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The first 30 minutes of Wada's fabulous debut feature looks like one of her bouncy, erotic short films: a litany of hesitations, a flurry of fetishes, a molehill of cute self-doubt. Then the narrative kicks in, and the film turns into an epically enjoyable comedy satire with everything from literary pretensions to doomsday fantasies in its sights. Eri (Oyamada) is a lonely city singleton who knocks out a trashy romantic novel and is amazed to find herself feted by the lit-crit establishment. She succumbs to a fashionable lifestyle, but since her own romantic experiences fall somewhat short of her fiction she starts writing a sequel in which her heroine Rie suffers the tortures of the damned and commits suicide. But then Rie (Ogi) emerges from the laptop to demand a rethink. With a wonderful score, zippy primary colour images, great UFO jokes and a guest appearance by veteran avant-gardist Katsu Kanai as God, this is the most fun of its kind since Godard's Une Femme est une femme.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Junko Wada
Producer: Takashi Echigoya, Koichi Fujita
Cast: Sayuri Oyamada, Makoto Ogi, Yoji Tanaka, Yuichi Kishino, Matthieu Manche, Katsu Kanai full cast
Duration: 90 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'
Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'
Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'
We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now