Sekai de ichiban utsukushii yoru (2008)

Director:

Daisuke Tengan

Writer:

Daisuke Tengan (screenplay)

Release Date:

24 May 2008 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Its streets overrun with children, the village of Kaname has distinguished itself with the highest birth rate in Japan...

Plot Keywords:

Secret | Bar Owner | Priest | Village | Japan

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Tomorowo Taguchi	...	Kazuya Mizuno
Sarara Tsukifune	...	Teruko Hinohara
Haruki Ichikawa	...	Midori
Shunsuke Matsuoka	...	Ishizuka
Michié	...	Shineko
Ayumu Saitô	...	Kenji Onizuka
Noriko Eguchi	...	Teresa
Shirô Sano	...	Endo
Akira Emoto	...	Journalist
Kazue Tsunogae	...	Beggar's wife
Kan Mikami	...	Gonza
Ryo Ishibashi	...	Kinichi Nihei
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hiroshi Kanbe	...	Kubo
Asako Kobayashi	...	Akane
Hiroshi Ôkôchi	...	Kasamatsu
Shun Sugata	...	Hara
Naoki Tokinosu	...	Ugly Man
Takeshi Wakamatsu	...	Hirano
Hajime Yamazaki	...	Kubota

Also Known As:

The Most Beautiful Night in the World (International: English title)

Runtime:

160 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Japan:R-18

A touching odd fest for the quality challenged

Michie Itô is great as the genius girl who breaks out in an allergic rash when she gets near stupid people, and who gives birth to a girl who has no bellybutton because she was born in an egg. It's all here. The reason for wars and other bad things is that people are not sexually satisfied. So, create a potion that will make everyone want to have sex all the time, all the unhealthy people will die from exhaustion, and then the world will be overrun with children. The march of civilization will stop but at least so will the wars and corruption. Interesting idea, but the acting and the storytelling in this nearly three hour film are so bad it can only work by virtue of a train wreck curiosity. It may become a cult classic. It's got full frontal nudity and a fifty persons naked orgy at the end. You can't take this film seriously but it does make a case for taking pity on it. It's bad, frighteningly bad, but it's shooting for being so bad it's good, hoping to create a pathetic charm. And it succeeds, to a degree. I admit to sorta liking this film after it was over but sitting through it had many difficult moments.

It's definitely not a pink film and I even hesitate to call it weird. It's more just earnestly underachieving. There's a wholesome quality to it too. It's strangeness isn't typical of Japanese weirdness, it's more like midnight-movie camp. It's structure is that of a fifteen year old girl (the one without a belly-button) narrating the secret of why her small community has such a high fertility rate: "It all started fourteen years ago when 'that man' came to our village", and then it takes its sweet time getting to the present. There isn't really an allure that something erotic might happen, although Michie Itô's character has a way of leading you to the edge every time she shows up, but there is a continuing implication that the story might unfold in an interesting and fulfilling way.

It's not Christopher Guest weird, where everyone seems to exist in their own orbit, and it's not Satoshi Miki witty weird, it's more like Godzilla ... with animated sequences from a third-grader thrown in.