Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageA Painful Pair (2001)
Director: Hisashi Saito
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
DV-shot Japanese indie with an interesting premise (a young husband and wife literally feel each other's pain) - which it squanders on a mixture of farce and comedy of embarrassment. The husband Ryo (Nishijima) is a teacher, stalked by an overweight female pupil; the wife Natsu (Tadano) is an office worker harassed by a gloomy, no-hoper colleague (Suzuki, reprising a persona established in his One Piece! shorts). It aims for a kind of kooky charm, but it's clumsily directed and the underlying attitudes seem deeply misanthropic. The supporting cast includes two other indie directors, Hara and Hiroki, neither very funny.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Hisashi Saito
Producer: Yutaka Suzuki
Cast: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Miako Tadano, Takuji Suzuki, Yuho Tadano, Kazuo Hara, Ryuichi Hiroki full cast
Duration: 112 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Review: Penélope Cruz more raunchy than ever in 'Nine'
Dave Calhoun reports on Rob Marshall's Oscar-touted musical with Daniel Day-Lewis playing a troubled director
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
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
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
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
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