Kamikaze Girls Outdoor Screening

Celebrating the grand opening of the NEW PEOPLE building in Japantown and the presentation of the J-Pop Summit Festival 2009

Marking this double occasion, The Center for Asian American Media and the Japantown Merchants Association will host a free outdoor screening of the wacky, fun film, KAMIKAZE GIRLS, on Friday, August 14, at 8:15 pm. Written and directed by Tetsuya Nakashima, it is one of the best reviewed Japanese films to be released in the US in recent years.

KAMIKAZE GIRLS offers a candy-colored glimpse into Japanese “Lolita” pop culture, and the outlandish, rococo fashions and lifestyle of young Japanese woman. Called a “yummy Japanese confection” by The New York Times, it tells the story of Momoko (Kyoko Fukada), who yearns to live in 18th century Versailles rather than in her back-country hometown of Shimotsuma, heartland of the Yakuza. To escape, she loses herself in the dreamy, doll-like fashions of the “Lolita” scene. Her idol is Akinori Isobe, chief designer of Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, her favorite Lolita design house. She travels all the way to Tokyo to shop at its store.

To help fund her expensive hobby, Momoko runs a classified ad offering brand-name knock-off clothes (produced by her dad) for sale. She encounters a buyer named Ichigo (Anna Tsuchiya), a super-rebel, “Yankee”-style member of the Ponytails motorbike gang, one of Ibaraki’s “Wild speed tribes.” Somewhat against Momoko’s will, she and Ichigo slowly develop a strong friendship as they share their feelings on the odd goings-on around them and discover they have more in common than they expected.

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