Summary:
A disease, which only affects men, has dwindled the male to female ratio to 1:4. Women have therefore taken over jobs and Japan becomes a matriarchal society. The young, female shogun dies and a new, and older shogun takes over. She is serious and direct. Her first objective as shogun is to see how the people live and how to improve the current situation, including wearing less flashy and expensive garb. However, she is urged as a part of ceremony to visit the inner chambers.
However, that is only the societal and political climate of the film. The main protagonist is Yuunoshin Mizuno, played by Arashi's Kazunari Ninomiya, who is the second child, only son, of a poor samurai family. He enjoys practicing swordsmanship and he spends his days with his childhood sweetheart (which isn't fully realized at the beginning) and having sex with as many women as possible. If it makes you feel better, he is not getting paid, and his only objective is to populate the Earth. His mother tries arrange a marriage with a wealthy match who would consider him because he is good looking and can produce offspring. Mizuno refuses and looks for a better way to help his family. He decides to join the Ooku (inner chambers of the [young] Shogun's household). There he intends to protect and serve the Shogun. He says good bye to his sweetheart and family, forever.
Once Mizuno enters he discovers it is different than what he expected. There is a hierarchy he must learn and his days mostly consists of chores. He is picked on by his peers and creates enemies as well. However, he also makes friends and moves up in rank. There is politics, fight scenes, some heavy petting, and more. I will not say anything more in the summary to avoid spoiling it.
Review:
This is a wonderful movie, the only thing that really hurts it is the fact that it is a mainstream, Japanese film. This enabled Ooku to draw a wonderful cast, however it is limited in how graphic the scenes become. So don't get too excited by the pictures and the title of this post. This is quite a chick-flick. Women will love seeing themselves in all the dominant roles of society, the romance, the man-on-man touching, and the beautiful scenery. I watched this with subtitles in a room full of college girls and we got yelled at for being too loud. It is hard to review without giving much away, but the relationships between characters may be the best part. Nino does a spectacular job as expected (wow he has been busy with this and GANTZ). As I hinted at before, I do wish we got to see a little more intense romance. The first kiss we see is a typical drama touch (and freeze) type, but things did improve. I am interested in seeing the behind the scenes so I could see how the actors handled the man-handling. One thing my friends complained about was Nino's old-fashioned hair. I suggest you watch it, but I don't know if you fellas would appreciate it as much. (Fan-service bonus after the jump.)
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