Finally got a chance to check out the movie JIGOKU NO HANAZONO and it was a total HOOT!!!
In a world where the OLs of the companies of Japan are secretly super yankee-delinquents, three factions of the company fight for office dominance!!! There is Shiori “Mad Dog” Satake (Rina Kawaei)...
Shuri “The Demon” Ando (Nanao)
...and Miyuki Oshima as Etsuko“The Beast” Kanda!
Between the tribes of yankee gangyarus there are "regular" OLs working there, like gentle Naoko Tanaka (Mei Nagano) who only cares about doing her job diligently and talking about food and movies with her co-workers (Yurika Nakamura and Rikka Ihara) ...
While the three tribes go at it within the halls of everyday clerical work, the mild-mannered "normal" OLs like Nao accept the mayhem as "business as usual" and it's all they can do to do their best to stay out of their way!
The Yankee OL hierarchy is shaken up when a newcomer named Ran (Alice Hirose) arrives in town and immediately puts some of the OLs to shame in a street fight (clobbering all three of them right in front of a stunned Nao!) and things get WORSE...when Ran begins WORKING at the company!!!!
Ran begins challenging the pact leaders for office dominance, but in the middle of all the chaos forms an unlikely friendship between the shy and bookish Nao and the cool and tough Ran!
Their friendship creates a calm in the storm, but when Nao is abducted by a rival clan, Ran must face her biggest opponents yet! From this altercation, a secret is is revealed, one that will affect the Super Yankee OL world completely!
with Ayaka Onishi
MAN, This was SUCH a FUN and EXCITING movie!!! With the hands-down adorable Mei Nagano as the wide-eyed OL and an all-star cast of names like Kenichi Endo (in full drag!) and an eyebrow-less Eiko Koike as “Big Boss” villains, this was like watching a cataclysmic world war a la Avengers Endgame!
With awesome acting, awesome FIGHT SCENES that keep you on the edge of your seat and a hilariously OVER THE TOP script by madman Bakarhythm (who appears as their meek section chief), this movie began with a BANG and never let up til the show’s last minutes!
I loved how they skewered the trope of the grueling “training sequence” in Kung-Fu thrillers like “Master Killer” by showing it as a tortuous training montage with OL themes like answering the phone and faxing memos, etc! LOLOLOL
And I loved the absolutely “meta” moment where both Mei and Alice are challenging each other to see which of them is the “Main” character of the story and which one is the “Supporting’ character, this was TOO GOOD!
Of course, the main draw of this movie for me was the amazing performance by adorable Mei Nagano as the naive Naoko. I recently put Mei in my list of favorite actresses, and not a moment too soon as this movie solidifies her as one of my BIG FAVES!!!
Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com
