Kamikaze girls

Before I watched Kamikaze girls I had never heard of director Tetsuya Nakashima, or of the two stars, Kyoko Fukada and Anna Tsuchiya. I don’t much like teen films and I don’t like Shoujo manga (it’s based loosely on a manga of the same name by Novala Takemoto). So why you may ask did I sit down to watch this film? Truthfully, I liked the art of the DVD sleeve! I am however very glad I did because ‘Kamikaze girls’ is undoubtedly one of the best films I have seen for several years. It made me laugh almost non-stop, it made me cry, it made me really want to move to small town Japan and buy a scooter.

The plot follows shallow, self-obsessed Momoko (played by pop-singer Kyoko Fukada), who doesn’t want friends because then she would have less time to buy clothes. Her life consists of fantasising about living in Rococo era France, tricking her father into giving her clothes money and buying clothes from her favourite brand ‘Baby the stars shine bright’. But when her failed gangster of a father is run out of town by the mob for selling counterfeit Versace clothing, her life changes forever. They move to the countryside where Momoko becomes carer to her one-eyed ex-prize fighting grandmother.

Desperate for cash to buy clothes, Momoko decides to try and sell some of her father’s merchandise. She places an advert in the local paper, and into her life walks Ichigo (Anna Tsuchiya), violent member of a local ‘yanki’ girl-biker gang. Ichigo soon gets attached to Momoko, despite Momoko’s insistence that she doesn’t want or need a friend. It isn’t until Ichigo is in real danger that Momoko acknowledges her feelings. Along the way they meet some weird and wonderful characters notably ‘Unicorn’ Ryugi (so called because of his unbelievably long quiff) and the enthusiastic, but socially inept Isobe, head-designer for Baby the stars shine bright (who Momoko refers to as God).

The characters are a triumph, believable and rounded in a way that is rare in manga adaptations. For all that she’s shallow and self-centred, Momoko comes up with some wonderful insights “When you spoke to him you looked beautiful. Isn’t that what love is?” and Tsuchiya makes the character of Ichigo wonderfully human and vulnerable.

This film doesn’t do anything radical – there’s no groundbreaking techniques, or new plot ideas, but it is charming and touching in a way few teen films manage to be. So move over the mean girls, the Kamikaze girls are in town!

Four stars