This film has just been shown in the London film festival and was very well-received. I can't yet find a listing for it on imdb.com even though it opened a year ago in Japan. Takashi Miike's "Izo" was also shown but got a thumbs down.
The Complete Japanese Showa Song-Book (Showa Kayo Dai Zenshu)
UK Times reviewA fateful encounter on the night streets of a Tokyo suburb leads to a murder: a flaky young man propositions a middle-aged woman, and stabs her to death when she rejects him. But both the murderer and his victim were members of gangs. The woman was one of six professionals (all divorced and all, coincidentally, named Midori) who convene for social evenings and have the wealth and connections to plan a revenge attack before the police investigation takes its course. The young man belongs to a gang of layabouts who may have seen A Clockwork Orange once too often: they live to party, and their parties consist of dressing up and performing the greatest pop hits from the Showa Era (i.e., Emperor Hirohito's reign) - with the odd spasm of ultra-violence thrown in. Warfare between the two gangs breaks out and rapidly escalates to a cataclysmic scale... Shinohara's febrile black comedy is based on a notorious novel, but it leaves its literary source standing. Partly because it has an impossibly glamorous cast, headed by Ryuhei Matsuda (Gohatto) and Masanobu Ando (Kids Return), and partly because its director knows the exact point at which pleasure shades into exquisite pain.
Japan Times review HereAny further plot analysis is not especially rewarding; there's a faint satire on the nature of war lurking somewhere in the background, but The Complete Japanese Showa Songbook is better enjoyed as a gory farce. It also contains a scene in a hardware shop among the funniest at the festival so far, as well as a pint-for-pint blood count to match the most violent that Hollywood can offer.
