2LDK

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

2LDK is part of the "Duel Project," in which super-efficient directors Yukihiko Tsutsumi and Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus), who had both worked on the anthology Jam Films, were each challenged to take one week and make a feature with two actors dueling in a single setting. Kitamura wrote and directed the samurai film Aragami, while Tsutsumi created the urban warfare story 2LDK. The title is an abbreviation, as one might see in a Japanese classified ad, for a two-bedroom apartment with a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. In 2LDK, Nozomi (Eiko Koiki) is a quiet, compulsively neat country girl who has recently moved to Tokyo in hopes of beginning a film career. Her roommate, Lana (Maho Nonami), is also an actress, but she's been at it for a while. She's brash about using her sexuality to get what she wants, while Nozomi is repressed. The personal space issues that afflict every roommate situation are exacerbated by their wildly different temperaments. While Lana is racked with guilt over a past indiscretion that ended in tragedy, Nozomi is used to being a big fish in a small pond, and has trouble dealing with the pressures of big-city life. When they learn that they're up for the same part in a big film production, the tension mounts. Lana pushes Nozomi's buttons by implying that she's been intimate with a mutual acquaintance she knows is courting Nozomi. Nozomi, who diligently marks nearly every item in the apartment with the first initial of its proper owner, lashes out when she discovers that Lana has used her shampoo, and things gradually escalate from there into an all-out, kill-or-be-killed war. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: Eng
• Features:
  • Making-of-Featurette
  • Special footage of the duel project press conference
  • Chapter selection
  • TLA releasing trailers

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Eiko Koiki
       Maho Nonami

• Director:

  Yukihiko Tsutsumi

• Producer:

  Yuuji Ishida, Kazuki Manabe, Susumu Nakazawa

• Screenwriter:

  Yukihiko Tsutsumi, Miura Uiko

• Cinematographer:

  Satoru Karasawa

• Composer (Music Score):

  Nobuhiko Morino

• Editor:

  Noboyuki Ito

• Production Designer:

  Hisao Inagaki

• Executive Producer:

  Shinya Kawai

REVIEW:

• At a taut 70 minutes, filled with tension, brutality, and dark wit, 2LDK stakes its place near the upper reaches of Japanese cult cinema. The space may seem a bit too big, particularly to New Yorkers, but the roommate dynamic fraught with unspoken hostility will be familiar to any adult who has ever shared a living space out of necessity rather than by choice. And the apartment seems a lot smaller once Eiko Koike, who plays the virginal, compulsively orderly Nozomi, unleashes the ear-shattering shriek that signals that the girl-on-girl action is about to escalate into physical combat. Writer/director Yukihiko Tsutsumi takes his time reaching that point, and actresses do a great slow burn. The actresses' hostile internal monologues (perhaps not entirely necessary) and the wonderfully off-kilter camera angles clue us in that things all hell is about to break loose, and when the battle royal begins, it's a doozy, involving not just pilfered beauty products, but caustic chemicals, samurai swords, and even a chainsaw. There's an underlying misogyny to this tale of two pretty, self-involved young women run amuck that's slightly discomfiting, but Tsutsumi offsets that to some extent by cleverly making both women struggling actresses. Let's face it -- acting is not a profession known for attracting well-adjusted, level-headed people. And Koike and Maho Nonami as her roommate, Lana, both sporadically evoke tremendous sympathy. Tsutsumi's entry in the "Duel Project" competition is a cleverly efficient and memorably offbeat work. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi