Funuke Show Some Love,You Losers!, opens with a car accident, whilst Shinji and Kiyomi mourn the loss of their parents, Sumika (Shinji's sister in law) arrives from Tokyo,in these new family circumstances her allowance is cut and she has to return to the family home, Sumika's bitterness that she's back where she started is expressed in the claustrophobic gasps as she cycles about the countryside, where there's no reception for her mobile. Looking at the dolls Shinji's wife Machiko creates, Is this witchcraft?, Sumika wonders suspiciously. Slowly events from the past are told in flashback,Kiyomi had drawn a manga of Sumika fighting with her parents after her father wouldn't pay for acting school in Tokyo, she threatens him with a knife but the skirmish ends with Shinji being cut in the face when he steps in to stop it, the incident is included in Kiyomi's manga,with the caption 'I'd kill to be an actress' underneath the image of a crazed Sumika wielding a knife dripping with blood. Kiyomi enters the manga into a newcomer's competition, it wins first prize and the whole village reads it. After the fight with her parents, Shinji and Sumika find themselves drawn to each other, and Sumika makes Shinji vow to be ever faithful to her alone, although he marries Machiko they never have a physical relationship. Desperate to get to Tokyo Sumika sells herself to raise the money. The film returns to the present timeline, Sumika begins a correspondence with a film director who has recently won an award, after a few letters he replies encouraging her to write more, a debt collector from Tokyo arrives to reclaim what Sumika owes, mirroring the past she has to sell herself again to pay off her debt, all the while Sumika tries to payback Kiyomi for the damage her manga had done. One night Kiyomi discovers Shinji and Sumika's relationship,hearing a noise at the door Shinji gets up to check and when he opens the door finds Kiyomi on the otherside but returns to Sumika saying nothing was there, inwardly Shinji is devastated that he's been discovered, which has tragic consequences. Things come to a head when Kiyomi begins drawing another manga about Sumika,and reveals that she's been working at the post office and has kept Sumika's recent letters to the film director.
Based on the novel of the same name by Yukiko Motoya, Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers/Funuke domo, kanashimi no ai wo misero is an acerbic dark comedy, ostentatiously depicting the fight between two competitive sisters, the drama overspills into human drama. Hiromi Nagasaku's performance as Shinji's excessively obliging wife was a great highlight.
Funuke Show Some Love,You Losers!
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