4 Movies Where The Main Characters Just Can’t Escape Trouble
4. クワイエットルームにようこそ (Welcome To The Quiet Room)
Japanese Level: ☆☆
Divorced freelance writer Sakura wakes up one day to find herself in a completely white room, with her arms and legs completely tied up, unable to move and completely disoriented. She has found herself in a closed psychiatric ward known as “The Quiet Room.” In this ward there are some patients with really bad problems. One woman burns her own hair. Another suffers from serious bulimia. There are many more who are trying desperately get away from this hospital.
But Asuka is normal. She doesn’t know why she is here. When she asks her boyfriend who visits hers one day, he tells her that when she overdosed on sleeping pills and collapsed, she was brought here. Asuka had suffered from insomnia ever since her divorce. But what exactly happened to her? Will she be able to escape this psychiatric institution and ever find out the truth behind what caused her current predicament?
3. テルマエ・ロマエ (Thermae Romae)
Japanese Level: ☆☆☆☆
This is a comedy about a bathing adventure that connects Ancient Rome and Modern Japan. Roman bathing architect Lucius accidentally time travels to modern day Japan. Through his experience and contact with Japan and the Japanese people (whom he refers to as the flat-faced people), he continually travels back and forth between times and repeatedly takes their modern bathing-related inventions, bringing them back to Rome and wowing the emperor.
By fate, Mami, struggling Manga artist seems to always encounter Lucius whenever he travels to Japan. As a new source of inspiration for her in her struggling artist life and career, she begins drawing him into a new idea for a manga. That is until one fate encounter causes her and her local village friends to all get sent back to Ancient Rome with Lucius where they must complete one final grand bathing project (to save all of Rome?!)
2. 百万円と苦虫女 (One Million Yen And The Bitter-Bug Girl)
Japanese Level: ☆☆☆
Suzuko just graduated from junior college and can’t find a regular job, so she has been doing part time work to keep herself afloat. During her normal boring life, a co-worker proposes that they become roommates to save money. Suzuko, dying to move out of her parents’ house, signs the lease, but her co-worker fails to mention that the roommate situation includes her co-worker’s new boyfriend.
Hesitantly accepting the situation, when Suzuko moves in, it turns out that her co-worker just broke up with her boyfriend, and she won’t be moving in. While grimming and bearing with this terrible situation of having to live with her co-worker’s ex-boyfriend alone, Suzuko takes in a kitten that was left in a box outside. Her new unfriendly roommate ends up bringing the death of it by returning it back to the curb where she found it. In revenge, Suzuko throws away all of his belongings while he is gone.
Suzuko now has a criminal record, and her new goal is to save up 1,000,000 yen to move on to a new life. She does so, leaving everything behind, trying to find a place that matches her lifestyle. However, before she realizes it, she ends up in a cycle where she is saving and moving, saving and moving, and travelling around Japan to find the perfect place that will accept her and allow her to live the life she wants.
1. さんかく (Triangle)
Japanese Level: ☆
Momose is living together with his girlfriend Kayo in a relationship that somehow manages to continue despite the two of them being a very flawed couple. During one summer vacation, Kayo’s younger sister Momo, a junior high school student, comes to stay with them. Always wanting and trying to take what her older sister has unconsciously, even at 15 years old, she manages to make Momose fall in love with her.
Momose, 30 years old and not being exactly the brightest, doesn’t realize this. He enjoys being flirted with, as it boosts his already inflated ego. When Momo heads back home, and things start to go sour between Momose and Kayo, Momose tries repeatedly to get in touch with Momo. But he’s not a stalker, right? At least he doesn’t know it. He just calls her many times a day. At the same time Kayo tries to win Momose back through even worse stalker and suicide threatening tactics. But she doesn’t realize that she is being a stalker either.
This is a strange love triangle that is always innocent and takes a look at a group of naïve and confused people. What happens when all three finally realize what is going on and confront each other?
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
The trailer for Welcome to the Quiet Room made me really want to watch it, so I’ve ordered it from Amazon Japan ^.^ It was on special, which is nice.
Thanks for the recommendations~
I didn’t watch that trailer at first, but after reading your comment I reconsidered and watched it anyway… I really want to watch that movie now too ^_^
Hope you enjoy it!
After watching it come back and let us know what you thought.
Will do~~ ^.^
Watched it today and it was a great movie. Definitely glad I took the time to watch it ^.^
I love 百万円と苦虫女!
One of my favorites too.
One of my favorite actresses too!