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KABUKICHO LOVE HOTEL

SAYONARA KABUKICHO

By Ryuichi HIROKI

Drama - Completed 2014

Where secrets hide and dreams rest—for a short time

Toronto - TIFF 2014

Contemporary World Cinema

Busan - BIFF/APM 2014

A Window on Asian Cinema

- Year of production
- 2014
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- JAPAN
- Languages
- JAPANESE
- Director(s)
- Ryuichi HIROKI
- Writer(s)
- Haruhiko ARAI, Futoshi NAKANO
- Cast
- Shota SOMETANI, Atsuko MAEDA, Lee EUN WOO
- Producer(s)
- Mikihiko HIRATA, Naoya NARITA, Kazuya NAITO
- Synopsis
- A young man dreams of working at a first-rate hotel, but he’s stuck managing a love hotel in Kabukicho, an infamous entertainment and red-light district in Tokyo teeming with lovers, streetwalkers, johns and pimps. One day, he learns not only that his sister has become a porn star but also that his singer girlfriend is about to sleep with a music producer in order to get signed to a deal. Meanwhile, the love hotel draws a host of other denizens of Kabukicho: a Korean “delivery girl” (the modern term for a call girl) and her troubled customers, a pimp who picks up an underage girl intending to turn her into a prostitute, and a couple of cops having an illicit affair who run into a cleaning lady with a secret of her own.
  Over one day at this love hotel—where guests have the choice of staying for a short time or overnight—the dreams and desires of these characters intersect and collide in a bittersweet portrait of modern Japan as they try to get through the day while aspiring for something greater.