Friday, January 14, 2011

THE JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR PART 2 (2004)

[Update 02/21/2021: need to redo this entire review and fix the screenshots.]

Not as good as Part 1. I still liked the film, but it was much darker and not as sexy as the original. A lot of that unsexiness is due to Reiko Yamaguchi only having a minor role. She was so energetic and seductive in Part 1 you just wanted some of that "tit-fucking" she kept talking about! It makes sense with the story that she only has a minor role, but I still really missed her.

Just like in the original, our lead character meets two different girls at a company mixer at the beginning of the film. In the original, he hooks up with Reiko and his life is turned into a living Hell (but at least it was a funny living Hell to the audience), in this one he hooks up with the other girl and things take a much more sinister turn very quickly. There were a few genuinely creepy moments (the way his wife approached the bed at 34:15 and the bloody anal rape scene) that made me think fondly of Takashi Miike in his prime, but overall it just didn't get creepy enough. I would have preferred if the film had been a comedy like the first one, but if you're going to go the creepy route instead then, that's fine, but go all the way! My biggest complaint though is the new girls in this one didn't have near the same screen presence that Reiko Yamaguchi did. Compared to her they were all boring. She did have one sex scene though.

One highlight, at least for me, was the short video interview with composer Hitomi Oba in the extras. I enjoyed her a lot in the audio commentary to the first film and was really happy to see her interviewed here. There's just something about her that I find interesting. Hopefully we'll get a longer interview in the future.

Lots of tits, zero eroticism, male enema scene, male anal rape scene, one chick with a pimple on her butt. Definitely worth a watch if you've seen Part 1, but nothing to get overly excited about.

Part 1 - The Japanese Wife Next Door (2004)