‘100 Yen Love’ (2014)
‘100 Yen Love’ is a sports and drama indie film directed by Masaharu Take. The plot of the film follows a 32-year-old Ichiko as she goes through a 360 transformation to better herself. In the beginning of the film she appeared to be a hopeless slob but later on blossomed into a confident bona fide boxing contender that is respected by her family.
The gender ratio of the film has more male characters as opposed to the females. The male characters includes Ichiko’s love interest, her manager, colleagues at 100 Yen shop, coaches at the gym, her nephew and father. The female characters, Toshiko, Keiko and Fumiko had shown similarities of being independent and caring individuals who strive in their day to day lives and try to provide for people other than themselves. For example when Keiko told her daughter that she will help her with her expenses the best way she can after she moves out. Whereas the males mostly had negative traits such as being liars, self centered and judgmental. For example when Noma made up stories of Ichiko being interested in him.
The story takes place in Japan, Ichiko lives in an apartment with her parents located above their bento shop which happens to be their family business. Everyday she sleeps in, barely grooms herself or does anything productive yet her mother spoils her and puts up with her behaviour. Take’s representation of Ichiko’s appearance is interesting because it is normally men who will portray a role like this. On the other hand, her recently divorced sister has grown tired of her attitude thus leads to the heated fight between the both of them which forces Ichiko to move out. Later on, she gets employed as a cashier for a 100 yen store during graveyard shifts to support herself in her expenses and pay for rent.
When it comes to family, Ichiko’s household did not have the common family structure whereby the man is the dominant figure at home but rather the mothers were taking care of the family. Fumiko moved back with her parents and was raising Tarou without any help from her ex husband. Moreover, during the heated argument between Ichiko and Fumiko the mother was the one that attempt to and put it to a halt. Their father just peeped and returned to his room with the door shut at them. He also stayed silent when Ichiko left the house despite the reluctance to let her go.
As for men, women and sexual attraction, Ichiko developed a crush for Yuji after all the days of passing by his gym and watching him box from afar. Eventually, they met because he was a regular customer at 100 yen store. It can be seen that she tried to impressed him, she got herself a pair of lingerie, wore a dress and applied makeup. She resorted to looking good in hopes to win him over. As the movie progresses, Yuji left her for a younger girl who dressed more revealingly.
The film had shown a few stereotypical representation such as sexism in sports. When Ichiko first showed interest in boxing, the manager immediately assumed that she was keen in the sport for the sole purpose of getting in shape. He brought it up twice, when she dropped by the first time and at the moment she joined. Furthermore, ageism was also shown by him. He kept reminding her that 32 was the cut off age and discouraged her to go for tryouts or join competitions. Even when she made it in, he still remained pessimistic towards her. Besides that, there was also the stereotype of women being the weaker gender. It is shown when Ichiko applied for a job at the 100 yen store, the manager, Okano told her that he would let her be dismissed at 6am when the regular graveyard shift hours were from 10pm - 8am for the reason that she is a woman.
For the most parts of the film, Ichiko was powerless. For example, when she was harassed by Noma. All she could do was struggle to get away but she failed miserably when Noma hit her to bring her to New York’s hotel and another time to shut her up temporarily and make her lose consciousness before she was raped. Another instance would be when Sada took over the store, he kicked her repeatedly for giving away the leftovers to Toshiko. After her transformation, she did not let Sada pushed her around anymore she defended herself by throwing punches.
The film deconstructs most boxing film cliches and was even unpredictable at times. (Dang, 2015) This was portrayed through Ichiko’s interest for boxing, she was intrigued by the pat on the back given from Yuji to his opponent after their match. It seemed comforting to her in ways other people would not understand. In contrast to that, because 100 Yen Love was inspired by the film Raging Bull and Rocky they had a common theme of not having a success story. (Lee, 2016) But even though there were no actual triumph, the protagonists still earns something valuable in return nonetheless.
In the end, I would consider Ichiko as a positive role model not only to the audiences but to her nephew as well. The longer she went for her training, the more drastic change in her personality and looks can be seen by the audience. Her new found strength and confidence had affected her nephew and Yuji. (Riberio, 2016). Tarou had confided in her earlier that he was bullied at school, after taking up boxing she teaches him a few moves as self defense in order to protect himself when necessary.
How does the feminist film theory affect the future of cinema?
In my opinion, the feminist film theory will be able to affect the future of cinema in numerous ways. For example through this theory, future films is able to abolish the ‘eroticisation’ of women in film. The representation of women can be changed through the three levels of cinematic gaze. That includes the camera, the character and the spectator. Humm (1997) states that the eroticisation of women exists on screen because of the assumption that the spectator would be a male thus the narrative structure and visual techniques used encourages the act of voyeurism to fit the male prerogative. In 100 Yen Love the camera techniques used whenever Ichiko was harassed by Noma were still very male driven.
Besides that, the feminist film theory has also encouraged more women filmmakers to practice film making independently. According to Film Theory (n.d) the influences of feminism in the world of film making, shows the unparalleled power, flexibility, talents, skills and broad expanse of the female gender in the industry. Some of the notable women filmmakers are Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola and Phyllida Lloyd.
Finally, the practice of feminist film theory will cause an increase in future films to celebrate and showcase intersectionality by letting people of any race/religion, age/ability, gender, sexuality and economic class the opportunity to be portrayed the way they are and not as the oppressed community in films. Recent movies such as The Shape of Water, Wonder Woman and Black Panther has highlighted on intersectionality.
Comments