Kenta to Jun to Kayo-chan no kuni (2009) Online

Omori Tatsushi's second feature casts Love Exposure's Ando Sakura as Kayo, a lonely girl who encounters two dim-witted orphans on the eve of a final attempt to break out of their miserable lives (Kenta and Jun, played with raw authenticity by Matsuda Shota and Kora Kengo).

Kenta and Jun have a vague plan to trash their boss's office and head north to Hokkaido, where Kenta's pedophile brother is serving a long prison term. In one moment of happiness, as they take sledgehammers to their boss's Lexus, Kenta and Jun exult, "Smashing things is what we do!", which aptly sums up the many acts of pathetic cruelty that follow.

Kayo, picked up randomly by Jun, joins them only to be insulted continuously and eventually robbed and abandoned, the contents of her handbag dumped out on a parking lot.

An important story with brilliant performances by the actors, highly effective sound, and wonderful photography – particularly one incredible picture of Kenta and Jun with a caged junkyard dog between them, surrounded by rusted-out ironworks.

Credits roll over a plaintive lyric – "What we want is not the grief in life, what we want is the joy in life…"

If you'd ask me to tell you, why you should watch this movie, I honestly couldn't really tell you. The naturalistic feel of it? The fact, that it follows 2 boys on their voyage, which seem to have no direction or higher goal, that they are trying to reach/achieve? The very fine and subtle acting, that elevates the slow moving pace of the movie? The fact that the people in here act irrationally most of the time, although by what standards would that be (western civilization maybe)?

While it seems simple and easy to describe overall, there is more to it. The back-stories of the boys for example (it would have been nice to get more of a feeling for the main girl too, but there is only that much time to tell a story). I understand that quite a few people didn't get the vibe of the movie or just couldn't care less for it. One thing is for sure, if you are bored after 10 minutes, you won't be delighted at the end of this movie. So if you rent it, it should be pretty clear from the get go, if you like this or not