BOUNCE KO GALS (Japan, 1997)



109 minutes, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles
Directed by: Masato Harada
Starring: Hitomi Sato, Yasue Sato, Yukiko Okamoto, Koji Yakusho

Japanese filmmakers understand the teenage wasteland the way most of us haven't since we were 16, and director Masato Harada wears his heart on his sleeve in this flick about kogyaru: tragically trendy schoolgirls who occasionally sell their underwear, and their bodies, for spending money. This is the sex craze that inspired those infamous vending machines that dispensed soiled schoolgirl panties, and it's those machines that inspired Harada to make the film. "It made me so depressed that men of my age had become that rotten," says Harada. And a movie was born.

Lisa, on her way to New York and looking for easy money, sells her school uniform during her Tokyo layover and gets scammed out of her savings at a balloon porno shoot (don't ask). With 24 hours to earn back her nest egg,
she hits the streets where she's taken under the wings of two kogyaru who regard her plight as a challenge. Streaking through the neon-scorched Shibuya summer night, ripping off customers and wielding a stun gun like a
magic wand, they go all the way through the darkness hoping to come out on the other side. Along the way, an assortment of strange angels provide moments of respite, while a larger army of human demons chase their tails.

Made in 1997, BOUNCE KO GALS is a personal favorite of every member of Subway Cinema. Existing in a strange state of grace, this movie is the best film about friendship ever made, but it never puts on rose colored glasses. As Harada says, "I left a notebook in a cinema where viewers could write their opinions about the film. One kogyaru wrote that I had said everything that she wanted to say but couldn't. Then she left her telephone number."