Review | It Feels So Good film review: erotic Japanese movie has lots of nudity but is otherwise boring and forgettable
- Director Haruhiko Arai set out to give a nod to Japan’s ‘roman porno’ films, but as erotic films go, It Feels So Good is an interminable bore
- Nothing remotely arousing is created during the numerous sex scenes, which are interspersed with dollops of pseudointellectual gibberish
2/5 stars
“Who do you want to be with at the end of the world?” is the question posed to the young lovers in Haruhiko Arai’s erotic drama It Feels So Good, which was somehow named best film of 2019 by prestigious critical journal Kinema Junpo.
The film stars Kumi Takiuchi, who was named best actress by the same publication, as a young woman who embarks on a torrid affair with an old flame in the days before her marriage to a high-ranking military man.
Between endless bouts of awkward rutting, Naoko (Takiuchi) and Kenji (Tasuku Emoto) keep their energy up by feasting and indulging in lengthy, meandering conversations about their earlier relationship and the partners they have had since. All the while, looming on the periphery is an impending natural disaster more threatening even than Naoko’s wedding.
Arai cut his teeth scripting films for Wakamatsu before embarking on his own prolific screenwriting career, which includes such gems as Rape Ceremony and Captured Mother and Daughter: She Beast. More recently, Arai adapted Mari Akasaka’s novel Vibrator, and wrote Kabukicho Love Hotel, both for director Ryuichi Hiroki.Ironically, It Feels So Good cannot even fulfil the overtly suggestive promise of its title, let alone spark any legitimate philosophical debate.