His Motorbike, Her Island (1986)
I love every frame of this movie. In fact, I don't think I've loved a movie this much since seeing ChungKing Express when I was in my early twenties. I got the same, warm euphoric feeling watching it. Directed and edited by Nobuhiko Obayashi, the camera is always in movement it seems, giving it this adrenaline rush that goes perfect with the movie's story.
So what's the story? It is essentially about young love and breakups to makeups and it's melodramatic even. Oh and there's a love triangle between Ko Hashimoto played by Riki Takeuchi, macho but sensitive, and Miiyo, a joyful obsessed girl, played Kiwako Harada AND a Kawasaki motorbike!
The first image of the movie is a man and a woman leaning out of their car windows flirting with each other as Ko on his Kawasaki whizzes in between them! He makes it to the scene of a car accident, picks up his copy (details of the accident and film) and hops on his bike to head to the newspaper office to deliver it and afterwards he gets into a fistfight! And this is all within the first four minutes of the movie! Its style, energy, and momentum is one the best things about it - it has enough of all of these things for ten movies!
There's a really terrific motorbike duel set piece - just think the "Chickie Run" from Rebel Without A Cause if it was directed by Sergio Leone! It's almost a five minute sequence with a tense score that's pop infused with jazz by Hikaru Ishikawa.
One of my favorite scenes Ko and Miiyo are by the beach water at night and they are flirting and they want to take their relationship to the next level... how though? By her getting her license! That's the next step of their relationship! Not moving in together! Not even having sex cause he asks her that last in the scene! It's about her riding with a license!
Another standout scene is when he catches her riding his Kawasaki without his permission and her proper license, they argue and physically fight in the rain and from their passion, you would think they'd be talking about a third lover! But instead, it's about riding the Kawasaki!
And here's the deal, the Kawasaki is definitely a character in the film. We get moments of pure sensuality and intimacy with it; Ko stops at a red light and hugs his bike and runs his fingers over the logo. Miiyo lays her head on his bike when it rains and she puts her finger in her mouth; it calls her, it summons her to ride! It's erotic and even orgasmic for her as the camera pushes in on her. "It was so beautiful I had to touch it" she tells Ko when she first sees it.
A word about its style; I've never seen a movie just randomly switch between black and white and color like this one. There are sequences where only the center of the frame is in color while the rest of the frame is in black and white. It's a very subtle painterly stroke, but it's fascinating to see Obayashi play with or expand his set of filmmaking tools. The film is a great example that there are no rules in filmmaking even when they tell you there are; and you can take a particular tool, say color and black and white, and utilize it in a new, exciting and unexpected way.
Major acknowledgement should go to the cinematographer, Yoshitaka Sakamoto, who makes the camerawork and shooting style reflect the movie's cool, unpredictable freedom that is worth admiring and makes the picture so damn enjoyable.
Ko and Miiyo are poetic about their love for each other, but also for their love of riding and their love of motorbikes. For Miiyo, being with him isn't enough. She wants to ride with him. She wants to ride alongside him. And we want to see her do that. Now, that's love.
According to MUBI, this was Kiwako Harada's movie debut which I definitely couldn't tell and her nude scene in it supposedly caused quite a stir at the time. His Motorbike, Her Island is fun, youthful and a sweet gem of a picture.
Obayashi passed away at the beginning of the pandemic in April of 2020. He was 82 years young, Rest in Peace.