Fantastic Fest 2011

BOYS ON THE RUN is like catching someone masturbating: unbearably humiliating and unimaginably awkward…but also kind of funny. Tanishi (Kanzunobu Mineta in a performance that will ensure he never dates again) is a 29-year-old virgin whose job is refilling bubble vending machines with novelty items. His coworkers are arrogant bores and gloomy alcoholics. His hobby is porn. The one bright spot in his life is Chiharu (Mei Kurokawa), his cute co-worker who almost treats him like a human being. Could it possibly be that she...gulp...likes him? Even after he accidentally loans her a bestiality porn DVD? Signs point to “yes.”

With a little effort, Tanishi blossoms into a pretty great boyfriend, but those constant close-ups of his stirring crotch are a sign that Tanishi is also a man, and men are dogs. To make it even worse, Chiharu takes up with his co-worker, the handsome, arrogant Ryuhei Matsuda (one of Japanese cinema’s sneering prettyboys), sending Tanishi spiraling into despair. But like Rocky (or Travis Bickle) he’s determined to get revenge.

BOYS is based on a manga by Kengo Hanazawa and it embraces the dirty little details that most romantic comedies leave out: the inopportune boners, the bad skin, the creepy passes from roommates. Where movie magic glosses over all the dirty ookiness that makes life so strange, BOYS revels in it, and its matter-of-fact approach is downright charming. This is a movie that puts both the “sex” and the “come” back into “sex comedy.” (New York Asian Film Festival)

Japanese films at Fantastic Fest 2011 are presented by WELL GO USA ENTERTAINMENT