Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru

僕は妹に恋をする (I'm In Love With My Younger Sister, 2007)
Matsumoto Jun, Eikura Nana, Asano Yuko
Dir: Ando Hiroshi

So I leeched this movie on a lark, expecting a little salt and spice.  Instead I got extended moments of scenery and cloudy skies and silence and virtual freeze frames of solitude.  Fraternal twins in love?  Well, boo-hoo!  I'm sure there were plenty gals in class who wanted to go out with MatsuJUn but only one (1) gal had the guts to take MatsuJun to a love hotel!!  Can you blame him?  Maybe they didn't see Eikura's photobook pics!

I've been watching a lot of "school dramas" lately: love between childhood friends, staged love, doomed love.  I've already seen the incest J-drama (starring Ogata Naoto and Ootsuka Nene -- Google if you're interested) over a decade ago and that one was a cop-out (no blood relation 30 minutes into the final ep); at least Koyanagi Rumiko sure showed her true colors in that story (this movie's mommy was played by Asano Yuko, who didn't have a whole lot to do and say in this movie but had three different people identified in the closing credits as working on her hair and makeup).

Like a lot of sad love stories there's plenny action on the rooftop.  I work for a Japanese company and I'm bummed that my building doesn't have rooftop access for me to hang out, reflect, confess my love or even chain smoke Seven Star cigarettes.  I think half the action in Japanese movies take place on rooftops of classrooms, office towers, or hospitals.

Like a lot of movies and TV dramas, this story has origins in the manga universe.  I think this was a shoujo manga and I guessed they cast the perfect guy in Matsumoto (the story's perspective is mostly told from his POV.  The movie had a long, plodding (but inevitable) conclusion that apparently didn't match that of its manga/anime counterparts.  Nor was it even close to being as explicit as that anime scene above: woooo, let's get it on in the chapel of LOVE!

Probably the best thing about this story of Luke and Leia is its straightforward presentation of the situation: no cop out in the final moments to save face.  No, these siblings are in LOVE and they're not grossed out in the least.  Come to think of it, neither were their friends.  The neighborhood caused a bigger fuss when Matsushima Nanako slept with Tackey.

THIS story of "forbidden love" is strictly for fans of MatsuJun or perhaps the manga. Never has something so taboo been so boring.