Love & Pop

Love & Pop (ラブ&ポップ, Rabu & Poppu) is director Hideaki Anno's first live action film, an adaptation of Ryū Murakami's novel, Topaz II. Released in 1998, it somewhat follows the film Tokyo Decadence, an adaptation of Topaz I filmed by Murakami himself. Love & Pop was filmed almost entirely on hand-held digital cameras, and contains some very unusual camera work, including many different mounted camera positions, such as on a model train riding on tracks. The film also flips from widescreen to 4:3 aspect, distorts (with effects such as a fisheye lens), confuses, and makes use of overlays stacked in layers to convey the character's emotions.

Love & Pop
Directed byHideaki Anno
Tsuyoshi Sugino (Assistant)
Produced byToshimichi Otsuki
Written byAkio Satsukawa
Based onTopaz II
by Ryū Murakami
StarringAsumi Miwa
Kirari
Hirono Kudō
Yukie Nakama
Music byShinkichi Mitsumune
CinematographyTakahide Shibanushi
Edited byHiroshi Okuda
Distributed byToei Company
Release date
January 9, 1998
Running time
110 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

An official English DVD was released in 2004 by Kino on Video.

Story

The film follows four Japanese high school girls who engage in enjo kōsai, or compensated dating. This is a practice in Japan where older businessmen pay teenage girls more commonly to simply spend time with them, or for prostitution. The movie is also a coming-of-age story. The main character, Hiromi, does not have the direction in life that her friends already have. Hiromi's friends were going to buy Hiromi a ring, but Hiromi refuses to take all the money because she does not want her friends to be jealous. Hiromi goes on dates by herself to get money for the ring. Soon, she gets in over her head. Hiromi falls too far into the world of enjo-kosai as she tries to hold on to a "friends forever" vision of the past.

Personnel

Cast

DVD variations

An SR-Ban version was released in Japan on 24 July 2003. Apparently, it is the director's cut, has two minutes of extra footage and has been transferred directly from the original tape, whilst the American and Japanese DVDs appear to come from a different source. The American version appears to be the original interlaced version, whilst the Japanese, non-director's cut, appears to have been de-interlaced and given the impression of a pseudo-progressive style. Both non-director's cuts have more subdued colours, whilst the director's cut is more vivid and the motion is fluid.[1] This fluidity in motion is due to the 30 fps frame rate, compared to the normal 24 fps frame rates on the non SR-Ban DVDs.

Reception

iSugoi.com gave the film an overall positive review, and commented, "Such issues as self value, respect and friendship are brought up numerous times within the film, and it's through these attributes that the film delivers a hauntingly poignant statement concerning a societal problem that exists within modern day Japan. It's a problem that can’t easily be fixed, but films like Love & Pop courageously attempt to address it and more importantly provide an outlet in which to discuss it."[2]

References
  1. "Love & Pop Dvd Comparisons".
  2. "Love & Pop – Review". iSugoi.com. 2009-10-30. Archived from the original on 2010-01-26. Retrieved 2009-12-24.
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