Platonic Sex (2001) Puratonikku sekusu (original title)

Director:

Masako Matsuura

Writers:

Ai Iijima (biography)
Yoshiko Morishita (screenplay)

Release Date:

20 October 2001 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

On her seventeenth birthday Aoi is raped by her friends. Her family rejects her and she runs away from home. Because money and materialistic wealth is now all she cares for, she ends up working in the sex industry. |

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Saki Kagami	...	Aoi Kadokura
Jô Odagiri	...	Toshimi Iwasaki
Maho Nonami	...	Akemi Yamaguchi
Kenjirô Ishimaru	...	Yoshio Kadokura
Toshie Negishi	...	Yukiko Kadokura
Taisihû Kase	...	Makoto Kanai
Hiroshi Abe	...	Hideyuki Ishikawa
Maiko Takagi
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yûsuke Kamiji
Hiroyuki Kishi
Mantarô Koichi
Yoshiyuki Morita
Mitsuru Murata
Ikuji Nakamura
Hitomi Satô
Takanori Takeyama
Yôji Tanaka
Emi Yamamoto	...	Maki
Takashi Yûki

Directed by
Masako Matsuura

Writing credits
Ai Iijima		(biography)
Yoshiko Morishita		(screenplay)

Produced by
Hideki Hayashi	....	executive producer
Chihiro Kameyama	....	executive producer
Kanjiro Sakura	....	executive producer
Madoka Takiyama	....	executive producer
Akifumi Takuma	....	executive producer
Miki Watanabe	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Toshihiko Sahashi

Film Editing by
Shozo Kawashima

Production Design by
Hajime Oikawa

Visual Effects by
Hiroshi Takase	....	director of photography

Camera and Electrical Department
Mitsuo Watanabe	....	lighting technician

Production Companies

• Cross Media
• Dentsu
• Fuji Television Network
• Shogakukan
• Watanabe Entertainment

Distributors

• Toho Company (2001) (Japan) (theatrical)
• Pony Canyon (2005) (Japan) (DVD)

Also Known As:

"Puratonikku sekusu" - Japan (original title)

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Company:

Cross Media

Sad and melancholy, not sensationalized

Based on a true story this is a standard—unfortunately—tale of a teen who's raped, blamed for it, abused and disowned by her family and then enters the sex industry. There's a few too many "You only perceive what's important to you when it's gone" dialog moments, but I enjoyed the sad and dreamlike, as opposed to angry or exploitive, tone of the film. Three good performances included: Jo Odagiri is solid and sweet as the good guy. (I've seen a handful of his films and this is my favorite Jo performance); Hiroshi Abe brings humor and strange insights as a flamboyant 'benefactor' and keeps the film from ever becoming too sappy; and Saki Kagami in the lead role, with baby fat in her cheeks, plays naive but smart through dumb faith (in something). She seems like her innocence might be unmasked at any moment but it never quite is. At times she seems creepily too young to be playing a role like this but never really slides off the edge. She gets props from me. PLATONIC SEX is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination. There's really nothing new and some of the writing is a little too precious, but I give it a marginal rent-not-buy recommendation because, by not attempting too much it gives itself a better chance of succeeding. And I think it does with the help of three above average performances—two by a couple pros and one from a newcomer.