Underwater Love – Onna no kappa (2011)

Directed by: Shinji Imaoka | 87 minutes | erotica, fantasy, musical | Actors: Sawa Masaki, Yoshirô Umezawa, Ai Narita, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Fumio Moriya, Emi Nishimura, Hiroshi Satô, Yutaka Ônishi

Asuki (Sawa Masaki) is in her thirties, works in a fish factory and is about to marry her boss when she suddenly encounters a kappa. This kappa turns out to have been her old classmate Aoki (Yoshiro Umezawa) who drowned at an early age and was never able to show his love to her. Although Asuki initially doesn’t want to know anything about this strange creature, she seems to become increasingly intrigued by Aoki. The ‘kappa’ are common in Japanese mythology. These are creatures that are half human and half turtle. For example, they do have the human body structure, but also a shell on their back and a kind of turtle beak. Kappa also need to keep their scalp wet and always be close to water. In 2007 the very successful animation film ‘Summer Days with Coo’ was released about these creatures. The kappa is also central in ‘Underwater Love’ by director Shinji Imoaka, but there is a very big difference: ‘Underwater Love’ is a pinku production: a film that consists of explicit sex scenes. And that’s not all, the subtitle of the film is ‘A Pink Musical’.

To start straight away on the musical aspect: this is very bizarre. The songs have an extremely strange structure and are therefore difficult to hear. These musical scenes are complemented with even weirder dances that are very funny to watch. Unfortunately, this is also the highlight of the film, because there is little else to enjoy. The story, as may be expected from a pinku movie, is dramatically bad. It mainly tries to hold the viewer’s attention through the sex scenes. But these are also not very special and in no way come across as sensual.

The most striking thing about ‘Underwater Love’ is the collaboration of cinematographer Christopher Doyle on this product. Doyle, known for the new classics ‘Hero’ and ‘In the Mood for Love’, may not immediately throw his name away, but his choice to work on ‘Underwater Love’ is difficult to understand. Scarcely beautiful scenes remind of him, especially the opening scene where a kappa is eating cucumbers in the water between the aquatic plants, but otherwise it is all very poor from a cinematographic point of view. ‘Underwater Love’ has a number of brilliant dances, but that does not save the film. Unfortunately, this pinku musical will soon be forgotten, and that’s a good thing.