When I taught at colleges here in the 1980s, I marveled at my students¡¯ freedom, including freedom from study. They could spend most of their waking hours at part-time jobs or club activities and still, somehow, graduate.
But, as Shinya Tamada¡¯s ensemble drama, ¡°Lust in a Karaoke Box,¡± shows with the persuasiveness of deep familiarity, this carefree existence has its downsides ¡ª and is not as unfettered as it looks from the outside.
Based on a play that Tamada wrote and in 2016 staged with his own theater troupe, this debut feature premiered in the Japanese Cinema Splash section of last year¡¯s Tokyo International Film Festival. It left without a prize but reminded me of films by Kenji Yamauchi (¡°At the Terrace¡°) and Daisuke Miura (¡°Love¡¯s Whirlpool¡°) ¡ª both directors with theatrical backgrounds who knowingly examine the inner workings of groups in action, from sly sexual innuendo to raw emotional revelations (which are not necessarily far apart).
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