In a small lakeside village in present-day Japan, 35-year old Asuka (Swaw Masaki) works at a fish factory. Unaffected by some of the younger girls working at the factory call her “old”, Asuka seems content to work with the fish and rinse out fish baskets, and is engaged to her boss, Hajime (Mutsuo Yoshioka). One fateful day she discovers a live fish in a basket and decides to save it. She rushes to the lake and releases it into the water, and that is when she spots the kappa (Yoshiro Umezawa). (Aside: a kappa is mythological creature that is half man, half turtle.) The kappa speaks to her, seems to like her and as it turns out is named Aoki, a familiar from Asuka’s high school days. The story suggests that Asuka and Hajime are surely not meant to be, and that there might be some inkling of romance between her and Aoki. In between the characters’ discoveries about themselves and each other, one of Asuka’s colleagues makes a play for the kappa’s affections, and another mythological creature makes an appearance.
Shinji Imaoka’s Underwater Love is a bittersweet take of the supernatural, unreciprocated love and mortality. There’s also some light humor, as when Asuka asks of Aoki what his business in the village is, and the creature replies in a deadpan manner: “Stuff”. Note that the title is misleading: there are no scenes of underwater love in the film (it’s not Uncle Boonmee).
Also, please note that Imaoka’s light, short romance (87 minutes) is a soft core porn movie. More accurately, Underwater Love belongs to the Japanese pink film genre, movies with thin (and often very odd) storylines that rarely run longer than an hour and feature soft core sex. Japanese soft core is different from American soft core and those expecting writing and moaning in soft lighting set to some indiscriminate piano tune will be sorely disappointed. While Underwater Love is actually rather light on the sex, what sex is in there is rather odd and only at one stage semi-explicit, depending on your views on turtles. Watching the film, you’re faintly ware that what you’re seen is more than slightly bestial, and yet the kappa make-up is so clearly a mask and some skin paint, you can’t help but think of Aoki as a man-in-suit for the entire film.
I haven’t mentioned that Underwater Love is also a musical. It’s a Japanese musical pink film, where chirpy characters burst into songs about death and death. There is some dancing to go along with it, though it’s of the “a little to the left, a little to the right” variety and looked very strange to my Western sensibilities. (Something is certainly lost in translation.) These musical interludes are mercifully short. The film has a distinctive look courtesy of renowned cinematographer Christopher Doyle (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Hero, Lady in the Water and frequent Wong Kar-wai collaborator), whose introduction of the kappa in the film’s first scene is breath-taking.
Also, please note that Imaoka’s light, short romance (87 minutes) is a soft core porn movie. More accurately, Underwater Love belongs to the Japanese pink film genre, movies with thin (and often very odd) storylines that rarely run longer than an hour and feature soft core sex. Japanese soft core is different from American soft core and those expecting writing and moaning in soft lighting set to some indiscriminate piano tune will be sorely disappointed. While Underwater Love is actually rather light on the sex, what sex is in there is rather odd and only at one stage semi-explicit, depending on your views on turtles. Watching the film, you’re faintly ware that what you’re seen is more than slightly bestial, and yet the kappa make-up is so clearly a mask and some skin paint, you can’t help but think of Aoki as a man-in-suit for the entire film.
I haven’t mentioned that Underwater Love is also a musical. It’s a Japanese musical pink film, where chirpy characters burst into songs about death and death. There is some dancing to go along with it, though it’s of the “a little to the left, a little to the right” variety and looked very strange to my Western sensibilities. (Something is certainly lost in translation.) These musical interludes are mercifully short. The film has a distinctive look courtesy of renowned cinematographer Christopher Doyle (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Hero, Lady in the Water and frequent Wong Kar-wai collaborator), whose introduction of the kappa in the film’s first scene is breath-taking.
Surely Underwater Love will not appease all tastes; I doubt that I will seek out more pink films, as this film is reportedly one of the best of its kind, but it has a unique charm and a strangely affecting climax (not counting the very final scene, which is another musical number, Slumdog Millionaire-style). For all its pink aspirations, including a pink background in its opening credits, Underwater Love is a rather benign creature with a soft heart, and I’d much rather return to this oddity than watch truly offensive tripe such as Stoute Boudjies again.
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