Kyoko Maki is working in a hostess club, which means fawning over men and encouraging them to spend as much money as possible on overpriced drinks. The industry's about flirting and flattery. Sex isn't on offer (officially), but they're often located in red light districts and you can expect a visit from the yakuza if you don't want to pay thousands of yen for one bottle of champagne.

This makes the film's beginning terrible. I had absolutely no interest in hostess club scenes. The industry's icky and a bit sinister, given its links to organised crime, although this film's turning a blind eye to the latter. There's a customer who likes Kyoko Maki and buys her expensive gifts... but that's merely how host(ess) clubs work, isn't it? He's being fleeced. I found that a bit uncomfortable. One evening, though, she's absent and he's obviously just sitting waiting for her, although he doesn't stop her colleague from putting on a transparent top and shagging him.

She's absent because she timeslipped. One moment, she was in 1985. The next, she's learning about mobile phones and the internet. What can she do in the year 2020? Answer: she can work in another hostess club and teach these half-hearted 21st century girls about doing this job properly!

Also, this is a pink film, which lowers your expectations about likely plot directions... but Yumi Yoshiyuki surprised me. (Yes, it's another of hers.) The film's romantic. That customer who liked Kyoko Maki? He's sincere and she was reciprocating. (Let's ignore realistic questions about that, since this is a mildly bizarre pink film with time travel.) Unfortunately, though, she disappeared, he married someone else and she's about to meet his son.

I don't rate Kyoko Maki as an actress (although she's starred in a fair few pink films like this), but some of her scenes she plays surprisingly well. This is sober, emotionally grounded material. She didn't have enough oomph for a cartoonish role in Ecstasy Cat Lisa, but here I believed in her understated reactions as a polite lady in an impossible, confusing situation. She's surprisingly good at being self-effacing and demure, then later starts telling girls how to do their jobs better and crosses paths with a bitch queen. I liked the scene where Kyoko Maki puts down the latter and corrects her misconceptions about being number one. Nope, she doesn't lack confidence.

There's weighty material for all the main characters. One bloke got a leg injury in a childhood accident, leading to his mother blaming his father and getting divorced. The identity revelations are exactly what you'd expect, but it's still heartwarming to see them unfold.

Even the pink content is part of this. Leaving aside a shower scene or two, every sex scene is important for the plot. (Mind you, even nudity is scant during the first half hour.) Kyoko Maki never shags for money, instead only having romantic sex once she has an emotional connection. She even cries when he sleeps with someone else. This film is romantic and nice. It even avoids infidelity, thanks to that divorce. You'll be guessing about the ending, given the bittersweet potential in a timeslip premise, but on average it's pretty good. I just got bored by its first twenty minutes.