billy_bang This film is the director's first feature. Homosexuality has always existed of course in all societies, Japan not being an exception, but I have read that this was one of the first films to deal with it in a matter of fact way. Granted a main protagonist who is in college but works as a rent boy every night is not you typical coming of age gay story. Nor does Hashiguchi beat about the bush. The very first scene sees the boy Tatsuro in a hotel room with middle-aged trick. Not does the boy act contrite or feel ashamed. As he says in the film when asked, the work does not disgust him. The actor who plays him- Yoshihiko Hakamada- is tall, with a aloof, steely demeanour. As the interviews make clear, he was cast after a lengthy audition, and many had commented then that both him, and the director Hashiguchi (then a very youthful 31) looked like brothers. He is superb. The film also details his relationship with a female classmate and a younger hustler to whom he unwittingly becomes a protector. (Masashi Endo who plays the latter looks like a non-professional actor, and his scenes are a bit awkward). Although Hashiguchi has dealt with homosexuality as central themes in later films, the subject matter is not so upfront and explicit as here. (HUSH his breakout film, has only one brief cuddle between the gay couple in the entire film). I guess as the mainstream beckons and the budgets get bigger, your films have to appeal to a wider audience to make some return.. Hashiguchi to his credit has found a middle way in later films without being a wash out (think of the misfires and Hollywood projects of Gus Van Sant as compared to the poetry of his first film Mala Noche for an example). However on the DVD I have (released by Water Bearer films) there is an interview with Hashiguchi who in fact says that on it's release the film (English translation- SLIGHT FEVER IN A 20-YR. OLD) did pretty well in revenues in Japan, especially among the younger audiences.

citronellaa Initially I had concerned expectations, having read the synopsis of this story. I feared it could be sleazy, or all wrong, but since I liked a couple of the director's other films, I thought I'd try it.Thankfully, the main characters had more depth than I feared. We see the vulnerability and innocence of young males who've ended up in difficult and messy situations as a result of their potentially short-sighted choices, as they struggle with their genuine emotions.What I didn't like is the way the storyline didn't properly explore the love interest of the two young males - there was real potential for something more beautiful there, but instead all there was, was tense kissing between them in the hotel room in front of a middle aged man who had hired them, shortly before one of them breaks down into tears... So kind of worrying and disappointing overall. Like - it's a shame, how things turned out for them, so I couldn't really like the film because of this. On the flip side, there is at least a little bit of hope at the end, as they walk home together, hopefully for new beginnings.

Lucky-63 The word "Slight" in the title fits. Thin acting, an equally thin plot line, and a string of vacuously elongated scenes make up this film, which demonstrates what happens when a director in-over-his-head meets a half-finished script and no-experience talents."Fever" -- which is supposed to suggest "hot", not "tepid" -- wants to be a morality play about two young hustlers. Tatsaru is a college student working as a male prostitute. Shin works in the same establishment, a bar whose clients choose from a stable of boys.Aimed at a teen audience, apparently one motive of this movie is to distinguish for the audience the difference between sex for money and love. The film vaguely manages to approximate this, its only clear, idea ... then gives us two or three empty minutes to contemplate it.Both of the boys are sought after by girls their own age. The father of one girl is a client of Tatsaru in mid-film. When Tatsaru later goes to her parents' home for dinner, there is nothing but the embarrassed "tension" between the two men to keep us interested ... for at *least ten minutes.Another of the film's apparent motives: to establish that gay men are lonely, and that love between two men is hopeless. This sentiment -- uncontradicted by any of what passes for action in the film -- is spelled out verbatim by an drunken adult client toward the film's end in another of the stretched-beyond belief scenes. Many art films stretch action to good effect, but this film is just filling time.I hated "Twist" when I saw it, but it was at least competent as a film. "Sudden Fever" can't begin to aspire to that level.

Johan-24 Hashigushi's film about two Japanese students who make some extra money as rent boys has an atmosphere much like his later film 'Like Grains of Sand'. What is impressive about his way of filming is the intensity he creates with his slow way of filming and his long camera shots from a single perspective. This way, the focus is on the actors, and the little things they do, through which we slowly get to know them. There is one beautiful scene where one of the boys, who is in love with the other one, lies on the top of a school building, doing nothing else than looking at a photograph of his friend, which he has secretly taken from their pimp, while a girl friend just hangs around him, getting very bored with the situation. The boredom is typical of all the youths in the film, who really do not seem to have any real direction in life, no ambition, and who certainly do not seem to be able of handling there feelings. The two boys are frustratingly clumsy about showing any feeling towards each other, which doesn't offer much hope for any possibility of some happiness evolving in their dreary lives. The film does leave you slightly depressed, as there does not seem to be much reason for optimism about growing up in Japan. There is however, some relieve, due to the humour Hashigushi occasionally uses in his film, like in the scene where one of the boys visits a girlfriend, to discover that her father is one of the men who pays him for sex.