Himizu review

Love in this teen flick is less like a red, red rose than a bloody nose.

Retooling a popular manga, it offers a surreal slant on post-Fukushima Japan where aggression lurks in every scene - even the romantic ones between high-schooler Yuichi (Shôta Sometani) and his stalker classmate, Keiko (Fumi Nikaidô).

As director Shion Sono (Love Exposure) homes in on a society buffeted by violence – natural and man-made - his absorbing if erratic comedy is menaced by Dolby-battering audio, neo-Nazis, Yakuza thugs and dream sequences shot on location in the tsunami’s wake.