Kamikaze Girls Reviews

An outsider wanting to stereotype all Japanese movies would find Kamikaze Girls a feast. It features the staple ingredients – a young woman who loves to wear frilly dresses, long socks and bonnets like a manga character, kitsch editing and music, rebel girls in leather on motorcycles, and a plot that allows for some silly comic book moments. Anyone who has seen Guitar Wolf vehicle ‘Wild Zero’ would really enjoy this.

And although there are certain aspects to enjoy, there is a limited amount of material to carry your attention right to the end where a baffling fight occurs between the two female leads and the local motorcycle gang.
Having said that, the two leads offer solid performances and their chemistry is natural. Strong supporting turns from bit characters that are larger than life enhance it also. But the performances can’t save what is essentially a mediocre film.

Kyoko Fukada as fashion-obsessed Momoko isn't enough to salvage this farce. Abundant narration ensures little time is "wasted" on anything that Momoko hasn't already developed facile explanations for. There's a "sideways" mode on the DVD to fill you in on Japanese culture references. Some of the gags are funny, but most devolve into "Kung Fu Hustle"-style slapstick, gross-out humor, or "Family Guy"-style humor, where characters and reality are one thing one minute and something else the next. That doesn't gel with the attempts to create genuine character moments, and there's little framework that can support characters that have enough pathos that you could care about them. You can't be both bent on trivializing and ridicule at any opportunity and seem empathetic. Momoko's biker pal can't both repeatedly head butt her because its funny and seem like someone cautious Momoko should befriend. Packaging such things into more palatable 'inserts' like 'worst case scenarios' or 'wildly exaggerated interpretations' is one thing, but suspense and concern built in one reality simply dissipates when reality is changed whenever its convenient, leaving a cheap, manipulative feel. I most related to a scene in which Momoko's father gleefully goes off about the mutilation and scarring that occurs in fights between female bikers, oblivious to her reaction. That and the silent footage of the stars goofing around while the credits rolled looked a lot more fun than the film itself. For one of Kyoko Fukada's better roles, see the series "Yama Onna, Kabe Onna."

Kamikaze Girls is a great story of two girls: One is in a female biker gang, the other loves everything Rococo and lolita fashion. The two have very different personalities and the latter is completely absorbed in her love for Rococo that she rejects any form of friendship. What develops in interesting, and very funny. Snatches of animation punctuate the film and add to it's comic side, while serious themes emerge later on.

I expected it to be quite close to Nana because of the two girls meeting element, but it is very different in every other respect. The light and fluffy lolita-fashion-lover is not the pushover she seems to be, and the biker-chick has her own morals which she stands up for.

A good laugh with random head-butts. Excellent!