Movies
At times, this felt like a modern-day Tetsuo. The Sound of Summer could've been a perfect title for a small rural drama, but it's actually Japanese body horror supreme. The title references the ever-present cicada, this time though the sound is anything but soothing and pleasant. The summer is hot and people have a tough time escaping the heat. The warmth draws out the cicadas, who make a real racket. Everyone is extremely irritable, except a strange figure people refer to as the Cicada Man. He walks around with a box of living cicadas, but nobody knows what he's planning to do with them. The film looks pretty cheap, but this is obviously a low-budget work of passion. The body horror is impressive though and the soundtrack is very aggressive, creating a very dark and oppressive atmosphere. It's a very promising film. it just doesn't quite do enough to balance out its lesser points, but it completely aces its strengths.Read all
A film that comes recommended by Shozin Fukui is definitely something I'd want to see. While it's not hard to see why Fukui would react positively to Difficulty Breathing, for me, it was just a little too amateurish. There's potential here, but the bland videocam footage just doesn't cut it for this type of film. After a woman is assaulted on the street, she finds it difficult to get out of the house. Staying all alone at home doesn't really solve her problems either, as she gets into her head and starts seeing things. Strange shadows visit her at night and a raging stomach ache slowly turns her mad. Japanese cyberpunk is never expensive, but it's up to the directors to rise above that limitation. Guys like Tsukamoto and Fukui managed to do that through excessive visuals and music, Difficulty Breathing only has a soundtrack to fall back on. The rest is just too cheap and simplistic. Disappointing.Read all