Director – Nobuhiko Obayashi (House, Turning Point)
Starring – Kiwako Harada (Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, The Drifting Classroom), Noriko Watanabe (Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., True Horror Stories), and Riki Takeuchi (Battle Royale II: Requiem, Tokyo Tribe)
Release Date – 1986
Rating – 3.5/5
Blu Release – 4/5
It was about 10 years or so ago that I found myself binging as many Japanese splatter films that I could find on Netflix. I had always knew that Japan had releases a lot fantastic genre titles over the years but I never ventured into them until then. Now, I’m always on the lookout for an Asian horror I can find but I rarely take the plunge into other genres because of my obsession with horror.
A few weeks ago my friends over at Cult Epics sent over the 1986 Japanese romantic drama His Motorbike, Her Island to review on blu. I knew it wasn’t a horror release but I was still curious if I would like it or not so I added it to my watch list. I want to thank Cult Epics for sending this one over. I really enjoyed this one and look forward to checking out other Japanese non-horror titles.
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a young man who breaks up with his girlfriend and uses his motorbike to travel around Japan. He finds himself on a small island where he meets a young woman who is very much different than his ex. He falls for her but soon worries that she may be more interested in his motorbike than him. **Spoiler Alert**
I went into this one completely blind not knowing what to expect and was greeted with a beautifully shot film that may not be a movie that I would typically watch but enjoyed it just the same. I know a lot of my readers will quickly skip over this review but fans looking for something a bit different will not be disappointed.
The acting in this one is a bit inconsistent at the beginning but as the film progresses we get some great performances from the cast. I didn’t care for the characters, to be honest, but the cast did the best with what they had and delivered some grounded performances.
The story for this one is more of a drama than anything but the romance aspects do show up from time to time. The film has great pacing and with the story we have we get a lot of dialogue heavy scenes that does work for the most part. However, my lack of interest in the genre mixed with the unlikable characters made a few of these scenes feel like they were a lot longer than they were.
Finally, this is not a bloody one for you looking for the red stuff. This character driven romantic drama is more about the story than anything else. Overall, His Motorbike, Her Island is not something I would normally review but Cult Epics was nice enough to send it over and I was interested in checking it out. It’s not horror but I enjoyed it and the blu from CE looks great. I highly recommend checking it out.
Special Features:
High-definition Transfer
Audio Commentary by Samm Deighan
Becoming the Wind: His Motorbike, Her Island and the Biker Movie – Visual essay by Esther Rosenfield
Her Island: Onomichi Pt. 1 – Visual essay by Alex Pratt
Director Nobuhiko Obayashi Archival Interview
Theatrical Trailers
New improved English subtitles
New Slipcase design by Sam Smith
Reversible sleeve with Japanese original poster art
First Pressing includes repro 24-page Japanese booklet (pamphlet)
