Love & Pop

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Part of our The Way of the Sword Film Talk Series!

Travel with Ryan Ferguson to Japan as he continues his explorations into the hidden corners of a rich film culture, featuring rarely screened cult classics and enough WTF-strangeness to keep you coming back for more!

July 1997. Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends spend the summer going on dates with older men for money. Armed with only a cellphone, Hiromi sets out to date her way to ¥128,000 in order to purchase an expensive topaz ring before the mall closes for the day. Based on the novel by Ryu Murakami, Love & Pop is the commercial live action debut from Hideaki Anno, chief director of the Evangelion Series, one of the most celebrated anime works of all time. The film is radical in its stylistic approach to teenage ennui, taking to the seedy streets of Shibuya with handheld digicams, distorted lenses, and a barrage of unconventional camera angles. Criminally underseen for years, Love & Pop remains a singular portrait of Japanese youth coming of age in the approach to the 21st century.

Presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

Ryan Ferguson

Ryan Ferguson is a film programmer and musician based in Hamilton, ON. He was the lead programmer of the AGH Film Festival between 2014 and 2021 and is the former Curator of Film at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Japanese historical and contemporary filmmaking is Ryan’s primary area of interest, and ‘The Way of the Sword’ is part of a series of film programs he is developing to provide more exposure to the lesser-seen corners of Japanese cinema.