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Callisto
Reviews
Scoutman (2000)
Disturbing but insightful
A teenage couple, Mari and Atushi, elope to a big city in search for a better life. Mari, who is crippled, tries her best to look for a job while her boyfriend spends most of his time picking up girls.
Eventually, Atushi is introduced to the world of scoutmen - flashy, dashing men who recruit young women off the streets for adult video (AV). Mari befriends Kana, who appears to be selling ""party tickets", but who makes most of her money by providing various services to salarymen with kinky fetishes.
The director spins a disturbing and rather sad tale about two innocent teens who get involved with the sex industry. At the same time, he shows us how volatile a career it can be. Aging AV stars are less in demand, and turn to fuzoku, the non-intercourse sex industry. A former hotshot scoutman degenerates into a lechering loser.
A well-balanced look at the sex industry particular to Japan, where girls sell their bodies to "dirty old men" to buy branded goods, while overworked salarymen get off on weird fetishes.
It was an eye-opener to see how scoutmen did their pitch (director filmed actual scoutmen doing their thing) and how the young teens managed to hook up with their "clients". Especially with the economic bubble bursting, young women are increasingly becoming attracted to such industries, which is easy money.
Oh! Soo-jung (2000)
Two sides of a love story
According to the synopsis in the film festival booklet, the movie plays like a Rashomon of a love triangle. Well... kind of.
Despite its provocative title, Virgin is essentially a romance, with a deflowering at the end of it. But it is told from the different points of view of the two lovers. The black and white film starts off with the man, Jaewoon, begging his girlfriend to meet him.
We then go through 7 days/stages of the courtship from his point of view, and then the same 7 days/stages as how Soojung saw it. I saw the POVs as memories of what the two protagonists had of their courtship.
The differences are subtle but I felt they were very real. People tend to have different perception of the same event, or they may remember different salient points, or even mix up memories.
For example, in one kissing scene, Jaewoon remembers sweeping a fork off the table while Soojung thought it was a spoon. The events and dialogue also get mixed up as memories get hazy. For instance, a particular dialogue about drinking took place in two places in the different versions.
I really enjoyed the movie even though I do not like the romance genre in general. It was something I could relate to. Especially in courtships, both parties usually have slightly differing views of how it REALLY happened.