It's a quiet, understated Daisuke Yamanouchi film. There's murder, revenge and garrotting, but it's mostly a study of a nice girl who's working as a waitress at a ryokan in a hot spring resort town. She meets a nice bloke whose wife ran off with another man. (He says he's a widower, but he's lying.) This is a likeable study of ordinary people doing their best in everyday life.

Underneath, though, is gambling and organised crime. The game's pachinko, like slot machines except with metal balls. (Pachinko halls are really noisy. You can hardly hear yourself think.) A year ago, Ami's boyfriend Keiji mastered a device for cheating at pachinko and winning lots of money. He suggested living abroad and asked Ami where she'd like to go.

A week later, he was found dead.

Today, Ami's getting on with life. What choice does she have? She certainly doesn't know who killed Keiji. She finds a job as a waitress, but she's aware that the ryokan isn't attracting many customers. "I was wondering if it's okay for me to be here."

I admired her. She's serious and considerate. Her employer (Goro) is just as nice, though, and the lady who runs the local bar threatens Ami not to do anything to hurt him.

This lasts for nearly an hour, i.e. the vast majority of the film. Keiji's pachinko-swindling device then makes an appearance, accompanied by prostitution, a contract killer and someone who'll bury the bodies and has a bottle of acid in case a customer complains that fingers are sticking out. Ami might meet her boyfriend's killers.

In its low-key, down-to-earth way, this film's almost charming. Its characters are relatable and it certainly isn't doing a "Roaring Rampage of Vengeance" despite technically being in the revenge genre. There's a bit of sleaze (with, as usual for Daisuke Yamanouchi, porn stars in the cast), but the nudity and sex scenes are relatively understated and even romantic. I like the main characters. You could do a lot worse than this.