Underwater Love

Underwater Love (2011)

Genres - Drama, Musical  |   Run Time - 87 min.  |   Countries - Japan  |   MPAA Rating - NR
  • AllMovie Rating
  • User Ratings (0)
  • Your Rating

Share on

Synopsis by Mark Deming

A woman finds herself caught in one of the most unusual romantic triangles in screen history in this offbeat musical comedy-drama from director Shinji Imaoka. Asuka (Sawa Masaki) is a woman in her mid-thirties who has a job in a fish processing plant; he's engaged to Taki (Mutsuo Yoshioka), who is also her boss, but while she's content with her life, she sometimes feels something is missing. One day while taking a stroll near a lake, Asuka spots a large Kappa, a supposedly mythical beast that has the body of a man, the shell of a turtle and the face of a bird. Asuka senses a connection with the strange creature, and she realizes the Kappa was once Akoi (Yoshiro Umezawa), a boy she dated in high school who vanished in a drowning incident at the age of 17. Asuka takes Akoi home for his own safety, but as she tries to hide the Kappa from Taki and her friends, she realizes she's still in love with Akoi, and falls into a strange but passionate affair with the sea beast. Described by its director as a "pink musical" ("pink films" are what Japanese filmgoers call soft core erotica), Onna No Kappa (aka Underwater Love) features several song and dance numbers featuring new tunes from the group Stereo Total.