Schoolboy Crush Twinks, twinks, and more twinks!

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Part of TLA Releasing’s Guilty Pleasures, Schoolboy Crush is a visually pleasing look into a Japanese all-boys’ school. After a messy break-up, Aoi (Yoshikazu Kotani) hires a young prostitute, Sora (Atsumi Kanno), to “comfort” him. Soon, the biology teacher finds Sora in his classes at the all-male prep school. It turns out that Sora was adopted into a very wealthy family, leaving Aoi confused as to why Sora has turned to prostitution. Because of the influence of the boys’ pocketbooks, students and teachers are not allowed to be alone together. So when Sora starts calling Aoi on his cell phone, matters quickly get out of hand. Ichiyo (Kawakubo Yuuki), Sora’s room-mate, develops a deep, but unrequited, love for Sora which quickly turns into obsession. To add to the melodrama, a bully with a particular propensity towards harassing Ichiyo tries to make life more than difficult for the newly popular Sora. Sora and Aoi muddle through their relationship with Ichiyo tangling things up at every turn.

Schoolboy CrushIf you’re into barely legal flesh and deadly love…quadrangles?…this movie should be right up your alley. Schoolboy Crush becomes a bit confusing towards the end with little to no explanation of some of the characters’ actions. It could just be the subtitling, though. The lighting is mostly superb except for a bit of an amateur shot between Sora and his adopted brother. The music flows well and keeps the viewer engaged without overpowering the visuals. It also fits very well into the film’s ending. The design is overall a very good fit.

I think that the teen angst and the confusion of the post-puberty years are captured very well by director Terauchi Kohtaro. The mixture of forbidden sexuality, prostitution and blackmail make for a great storyline. Furthermore, I appreciated the ending’s almost realism. Although the film sometimes feels like an over-the-top soap opera, I definitely felt that it was good enough for me to watch a few more times.

Schoolboy Crush is in Japanese with English subtitles. Don’t bother reading the back of the DVD cover. It portrays the movie in a favorable, but unrealistic, light. The film can speak for itself without the duplicitous advertising.

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