Love Exposure

2011 "Give it to me."
8| 3h57m| NR| en
Details

The story of a teenage boy named Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while working as an "up-skirt" photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing – which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian – dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that's a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.

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Reviews

GamerTab That was an excellent one.
WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
lightwhitesky Crazy, over 3 hours long mixture of themes and ideas by Sion Sono. The movie exposes not only love, but also faith, family, society and more. Despite exaggerated, insane style of the movie, it manages to capture character's personality, world view and emotions from this whirl and present them in a unique and interesting way. Storytelling in the movie might look chaotic, with all the distinctly different characters, crazy cults, up-skirt photography, and unexpected shifts of the perspective, but at some point it all comes together. Love exposure is a long movie, and changes of style and exposed themes make it almost feel like a few different films, and even though some moments of it are not quite as interesting and entertaining as the others, in the end you will still get one of the most enjoyable and unique experiences movie can provide.
earwicker777 This movie is perfection. Normally, even when I enjoy a movie, I'm ready for it to be over after about two and a half hours... I'm sure there is some psychological reason for this. Suffice it to say that this was not at all the case with this movie; in the almost four hour running time, there was literally only one five minute stretch where the pace slowed down. The remainder of the film is pure electricity, and touched on every emotion you could want in a movie... there's laughter in spades, there's action aplenty, and I challenge anyone not to tear up at the amazing ending. If you see only one movie about up-skirt panty-shot taking ninjas this year, make it this one.
jandesimpson For me, "Love Exposure" is something of a terrific one-off experience. How to begin to describe with any degree of rationality the extraordinary effect of bewildering excitement it has had on a near octogenarian, is a task I find daunting. And yet for a work unlike any other in its helter-skelter delivery of an adolescent's quest for romantic fulfilment ( which I suppose is what it is all about), I feel I should at least take up the challenge. With such an engagingly innocent central character as schoolboy Yu, it seems completely natural to suspend disbelief and go along with everything he experiences, including his hilarious initiation into the skills of a panty photographer, his role as father-confessor at a perverts' convention and his attack with explosives and much blood letting on the HQ of a brainwashing religious cult. Buried beneath it all there could well be many serious messages (you get a big chunk of Corinthians!) or it could be just a pile of tosh. But in the end, who cares, such is the delirious pleasure that just under four hours of outrageous goings-on have delivered. I suppose I just love the theme of innocent youngsters taking on the wicked world. Gosh! I am still reeling, my critical faculties all but shattered!
Tim Kidner This was part of Film 4's recent 'Extreme Season' and it's easy to see why. Film critic and introducer to the film, Mark Kermode unravelled a whole heap of adjectives in trying to describe its virtues - and I think he only scraped the surface.Yes, we know by now that it's 4 hours long but with the requisite ad breaks, that bumps it up to five. Thus, the very thought of committing the time and effort to this huge chunk of one's valuable life is far worse than actually watching it. Due to other commitments, I had to undertake watching the recording in 3 manageable pieces, turning each into 'normal' film lengths.Lurching between high melodrama and lamenting ballad, Love Exposure IS a love story. But the most crazy, beautiful and fantastical one you've ever seen. Typically Japanese in going to extremes, at times modern fairytale and then extreme graphic violence almost at the turn of a hat.Somehow, strangely all the characters are endearing, especially the two central ones, Yu and Yoko. Yoko must have the sweetest smile I've ever seen, at times enticing, at others crying painfully. If you think though that this is just about emotional roller-coasting, there are some of the most striking story lines and stunts and ideas that have come from a fertile, imaginative and superb director, that mix martial arts with technology, religion with sex, perversion with love and much more.The choice of music, from Ravel's 'Bolero' to other brilliant rock pieces, that were repeated in loops really added to the structure and my enjoyment and I'm sure they hypnotised us into feeling the film shorter than it actually was. This was one of the best features of the project.Unlike the film, I'm going to keep my review shortish. Let's just say that the hype is real, the movie is unforgettable and whilst not quite a Citizen Kane, most film lovers with an open mind and an open heart will find much to enjoy.