Description

Backwater 2013
Tomogui (original title)
Not Rated | 1h 42min | Drama | 7 September 2013 (Japan)

Storyline:

Cannes Film Festival winner Shinji Aoyama creates a chilling atmosphere in this adaptation of an award-winning novel. A young man tries to fight the deadly influence of his violent, abusive dad. Will the sins of the father carry on to the next generation in the bloodline?

User review:

With Tomogui, Shinji Aoyama misses again with a potentially interesting Zola-esque tale of the propensity of violence to be passed down from father to son. Set in a backwater town in the late 80s, wexe2x80x99re introduced to teen-aged Toma (Masaki Suda) returning to his fatherxe2x80x99s (Ken Mitsuishi) home. Here he sees dissipated dad abusing his current lover (Yukiko Shinohara). Mom, now divorced, having only one hand and owning a fish shop (where nobody seems to go), offers worldly advice to young Toma. In the meantime, Tomaxe2x80x99s got a brand new girl, sweet Chikusa (Misaki Kinoshita). Tomogui starts off well enough, with a cast of strong character actors, but soon begins a decline of predictability end ever-escalating histrionics that culminates in a laughable scene of Mom getting revenge on her ex after he rapes Chikusa xe2x80x93 that is after shexe2x80x99s been abused by Toma. Aoyama does add a coda that cynically, and I must admit humorously, inflates a bit of all this genetically predisposed nonsense. But I donxe2x80x99t think that humor was what he was after.

Director: Shinji Aoyama
Writers: Shin’ya Tanaka (based on the novel by), Haruhiko Arai (screenplay)
Stars: Masaki Suda, Ken Mitsuishi, Yukiko Shinohara
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Release Date: 7 September 2013 (Japan)
Also Known As: Backwater

6.2Rating: 6.2 / 10 from 242 users

Cannes Film Festival winner Shinji Aoyama creates a chilling atmosphere in this adaptation of an award-winning novel. A young man tries to fight the deadly influence of his violent, abusive…