Me and my friend Car are big fans of Johnny’s Jimusho band ARASHI, and when we found out member Sakurai Sho was going to be in a movie adaptation of HONEY AND CLOVER, we really wanted to check it out!
A friend of ours would regularly get japanese movies for us to watch, and as we have such little time, over time, the discs tended to pile up! But we made all the time we could spare when a few months later, he managed to finagle us our very own subtitled copy of Honey and Clover! We put off a dinner date, and that weekend, treated ourselves to the movie, and we weren’t disappointed!
Starring Sho in an ensemble cast of about five or six other “main” characters, including Masato Sakai, the shogun in Atsu-Hime, ( And yes, I will find a way to mention that drama in every entry I post! har har) the moive followed the lives of several art students, their peers and loves. Oh, and the theme song was Arashi’s “Aozora Pedal”, for those wondering!
I was really taken aback by a young actress playing the part of reclusive artist Hagu. I remember saying to Car, “Man, that actress is REALLY talented! I think she steals the show!, and added “Man, when that chick grows up, she’s gonna be a heartbreaker!” I had guessed at the time her age to be somewehre around 13 or 14, but I didn’t realize the character was supposed to appear younger than her age. We found out her name was Yu Aoi, an actress who we’d later hear in another Arashi-connected movie (starring Ninomiya Kazunori), TEKKON KINKREET, abiet only her voice in the animated show.
That was around 2006. A few weeks back, I hear about this great movie coming out starring Nagasaku Hiromi, called “Hito no Sex o Warau na”, sort of a latter-day “Graduate” of sorts, with Nagasaku as the Mrs. Robinson-type character. After seeing some previews of the show, as well as a glowing review by Mark Schilling, boy, after that, I really wanted to see it, too! Besides all that, the movie also starred…you guessed it, Yu Aoi!
So we’re talking about the movie recently, and our friend lets us know that the movie HAS come out on DVD, but so far, no subtitled version! DARN! I say, “Man, I can’t wait for that movie to get released! You know, it’s not just that Nagasaku’s in it, and the story looks great, I really like Yu Aoi, too!”
A thought crosses his mind, then he asks, “By the way, did you guys EVER watch that “Hula Girls” movie I gave you?” I had barely remembered that he’d given us that! Of course, it was in that growing spindle of movies, still waiting its turn to make it to movie night. “Um, no, we never got around to it. The last movie we attempted was that “Swing Girls” you gave us…”
“Well, Aoi Yu’s in that Hula Girls movie, you know.”
“And was she good in that movie? I really liked her in Honey and Clover.”
“Well, that’s up to you to decide, but there’s this scene, where she’s doing her…whatddaya call it…dance routine?... I think you should see it.”, he concluded.
So after work today, I brought out that pile, with the wacky Tabe Mikako / Shingo Katori movie Saiyuuki” at the very top of the spindle, and dug deep into the stack, and brought out the Hula Girls disc. I realized if I waited for a “proper” time for us to watch it,, we’d never get around to it, so I popped it in and just watched it right then and there…and…
I LOVED IT!
Led by sexy actress Yasuko Matsuyuki (star of some of my fave dramas like Riso No Joshi, Africa No Yoru and Nanisama), I knew we were in for a solid movie, but I wasn’t prepared for how awesome Yu Aoi was going to be. I’d sensed her charisma in Honey and Clover, but here was a movie where she was allowed to dominate the scenes, and she nailed down every one! Mumbly and shy, tough and outspoken, sensitive and heartbroken, she assimilated each role perfectly, and, as they say, “I believed”… Yep, I believed every portrayal!
As one of the four motley coal miner’s daughters volunteering for Matsuyuki’s Hula Lessons, Aoi Yu's character Kimiko seemed so steadfast and composed in contrast with the other women… at first I didn’t realize it was the same girl from Honey and Clover! But as she worked each scene, the “Hagumi” character would shine through, and I’d think “Ah! It IS her!”
She seemed a lot more mature than I remembered, too. Then when I finally got to see her perform that “dance routine”, she was so damn sexy doing it, I really started to wonder (read:worry) just how old she was…this was no “little kid”!!!She ROCKED!
The closing scene where the group finally appears onstage and Aoi Yu’s character Kimiko goes all out for her solo routine, all dressed in white, well, that just about did it for me. She looked so “kakkoi” performing , and MAN was she gorgeous, just radiating those good vibrations! For some reason she kind of reminded me of Nishida Hikaru, with a bit of Koyuki thrown in for good measure (and I mean GOOD measure)!
Needless to say, right after the movie was over, I hopped onto the computer and checked out her Wikipedia stats, which reassuringly declared: Aoi Yu, born August 17th, 1985…
Hmmm…1985. So she was probably around 21 years old when that movie was shot…
WHEW!
So Hula Girls gets a “Thumbs Up” from me, and I’m really going to hard-sell this to Car so SHE’LL make some time to see this, as well! And that’ll be one more great cinematic candidate taken out of the ever-growing movie spindle, and onto the shelf of treasured movies!
Postscript: Argggh, Now, it’ll be even HARDER to wait for that HITO NO SEX O WARAU NA subtitled movie to come out! It was hard enough when I just “liked” her!
As Travelling Wilbury Tom Petty once said: “The waiting is the hardest part!”