I was pleasantly surprised by Fuyajo. Seamy, seedy, with some of the most evocative steady-cam work I have seen in a while. The opening scene, especially, where the camera follows Kaneshiro's character Kenichi through the back-alleys of Kubuchiko, while the soundtrack wails ethereally is quite something. TK gives a solid performance, as usual, while Yamamoto is more-or-less convincing as the morally suspect Natsumi. I did feel, however, that she committed what seems to be a common on-screen faux-pas in Japanese and Taiwanese films particularly, of allowing her character to segue from the believable into the I'm-a-raving-hysterical-banshee-of-a-woman who will (case in point) throw myself out of a moving car if the man I *love* tells me I'm not to be trusted ... kind of stretches the whole verisimilitude thing a bit too far. Other than that, however, and a plot that could have benefited from a tad more exposition, a good film - stunning to look at (snaps to the cinematographer) and engaging to watch.
Review of Sleepless Town
