The success of ‘All about Lily Chou Chou’ comes from the naked truth, the bitter sweet of growing up with deeply sympathize and understanding point of view, which Shunji Iwai and his cinematographer Noboru Shinoda present. With a dark theme story reflecting the dark side of Japanese society such as school bullying, schoolgirl prostitution (Tempesta, 2015), suicide and parents care-lacking of their children, no one ever expected the film could become one of the top three highest sales in Japan 2001 (the other two are Spirit Away of Hayao Miyazaki and Visitor Q of Takashi Mike). The day he plans to meet a friend he’s only met online, “Blue Cat”, at Lily’s concert.Īll about Lily Chou Chou, a film made by Shunji Iwai, is last for 157 minutes – a rare length of a movie. The downward spiral seems unrelenting and Yuichi is likely to bear with Hoshino’s bully forever if that day hadn’t come. On this forum, he found for himself an online confidant called “Blue Cat”. He devoted a website called “Philia” for people who “love Lily till they die” to come and tell, not only their love for Lily but also the stress and pain they have in real life. Sitting down under Hoshino’s abuse for so long, Yuichi seeks for sanctuary in Lily’s voice. At school, Hoshino forms up a gang to force other boys to steal money, pimps Shiori (a female classmate of Hoshino and Yuichi) to older businessmen, and traps Kudo (a gifted pianist and also a crush of Yuichi and Hoshino) to be a prostitute. He turns from a fellow student into a sadist and forces his former friend, Yuichi, to be a petty theft and shoplifting in order to meet Hoshino’s daily extortion demand. During that time, Hoshino had a narrow escape from death twice and witnessed a person, whom he just met from the trip to Okinawa, died horribly. One summer, Hoshino, Yuichi and their group of friends travelled to Okinawa for holidays. Yuichi, best friend of Hoshino, is a normal teenage boy, shy before girls and timid to say what he wants to say. Hoshino is described as the best student of their high school, gifted talent in Kendo (Japanese martial art with sword). This film is a requiem song from Shunji Iwai, sung by Lily Chou Chou for the lost and immature souls, who are imprisoned in the invisible cage, stuck in their teenage blue for all the sadness and pain, which these silkworms have to suffer, before they can break their cocoons and turns into butterflies, as chou chou in Japanese means butterfly.Īll about lily Chou Chou’s main characters are two eighth grade boys living in a sleepy town in rural area of Japan, Yuichi Hasumi and Shusuke Hoshino. Lily Chou Chou’s song keeps repeating “I see you and you see me”, but ironically, we never “see” her.Īll we know about her, is through many black screen and white texts, praises her as a songbird, a salvation of drained hearts. It’s all about her, a Japanese pop idol, but at the same time, she’s not visualized clearly in any scene of the movie. This is a film about Lily, but at the same time, it is not.
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