Daisuke Yamanouchi does magical realism. This one has no gangsters, no violence and almost no prostitutes. Instead, this is a gentle, emotional film that's hitting unusual notes.

Yoshioka (Youta Kawase) is an unsuccessful author of smut. His publisher would prefer him to write dirty books that are simpler and less intellectual. Those sell better. Yoshioka isn't interested... and his writing style gets him a bride almost twenty years younger than him. Michiru (Kotomi Asakura) thinks his books are great and believes in his talent. She's his biggest (and probably only) fan. She promises to hold down a job and support him. All he has to do is write.

The film's first hour or so is simply studying this couple. Daisuke Yamanouchi also cast Youta Kawase and Kotomi Asakura around now as the leads of Wanted: For Forced Entry and Bonded by Sorrow, so he must have seen something in them. (He's also cast them together in other films I unfortunately haven't hunted down yet: The Goddess Cums Again and Inbou no Yoru: Kurikaesu Masayume.) Youta Kawase's an interesting actor, capable of portraying pretty much the worst human being imaginable (c.f. Wanted: For Forced Entry) without apologies or back-pedalling... and yet he'll always retain his humanity. He's made hundreds of films, incidentally, and he's definitely the most intriguing member of Yamanouchi's regular acting stable.

Here, he's playing a dick. A sympathetic-ish one, up to a point, and you'll always be able to relate... but yeesh. Yoshioka's the one who proposed marriage to Michiru, but after a while he's shagging Kyoko Maki and not even bothering to go home. He drinks and stays out late. He's bad at talking to his wife. (When Michiru's been through hell at work and has barely managed to drag herself home, his idea of a "hello" is "I'm hungry, make food.") Sometimes, he's merely rude and graceless. When Kyoko Maki announces that she's bought one of his books, he grumbles at her for buying a second-hand copy and swears. Occasionally, though, he's jaw-dropping. I was floored when he told Michiru to cheat on him, sleep with customers at work to win contracts and so give him ideas for his books.

He has no idea about Michiru's work life. I presume he never asked.

Nearly an hour into the film, though, he gets dragged into a bar and starts telling us about Michiru. Something's wrong. Something's happened. That scene is Youta Kawase's tour de force in this film.

What happens after that is impossible. Followed by still greater impossibilities. There's a psychic prostitute who can only make telepathic contact during sex. There's a lighthouse where the dead return to life, if you carry certain herbs. There's a reunion, then a farewell, then something very different again. A scene in the latter appears to contradict the rest of the film by having familiar characters in completely different roles. Either the scene isn't literally true, or we'd been watching some kind of dream or hallucination... or maybe it's just magical.

There's the slightly hypnotic sight of Kyoko Maki working in a lonely bar and talking about boiled eggs. In its understated way, that might be my favourite of her film appearances.

Also, the ending is nice.

This is an offbeat, almost literary film (despite the occasional nudity from porn stars in the cast). It's about authors and writing. Everyone wants to see Yoshioka produce the proper novel they think he's capable of, while the film's emotional message involves the idea that you can keep a dead person alive in your writing. This is one of the best-known movies for each of Yamanouchi, Kawase and Asakura. (That's saying a lot for Yamanouchi and Kawase, given their prolific output, but Asakura should make more films.) I think Yamanouchi's fascinating when he's doing work like this.