Drowning Love
溺れるナイフ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A teen model and a shrine heir in a seaside town — adolescent desire filmed as fever.
Natsume Mochizuki, fifteen, is a popular teen model in Tokyo when her family moves to her father's seaside home town, Ukigumo, to run her grandfather's inn. On her first night she slips past a shrine gate onto a forbidden beach, where a blond boy is swimming in the god's sea. He is Koichiro Hasegawa, Kou, heir to the line of Shinto priests who have kept the land for generations; the town, the mountains and the sea, he tells her, are all his. She fights him and falls for him at once. When she shows Kou the photo book that the photographer Shogo Hirono has shot of her, they kiss and become a couple, sure that together they are invincible.
On the night of the fire festival Takumi Hasume, a guest at the inn who has been stalking her, says her grandfather has collapsed and drives her into the mountains, where he tries to rape her. Kou finds them but is knocked down, and men from the town stop the attack. The story spreads online and at school; Natsume shrinks into herself. Kou, who could not save her, drifts into fights and tells her to keep him out of her life.
In high school Kou's gentle childhood friend Katsutoshi Otomo stays beside her, and they start going out. Kana Matsunaga, the shy classmate who worshipped the pair, blossoms into a rival. Natsume turns down a film role whose script includes a rape scene. Then she meets Kou by the mountain shrine. Their feelings break open, but he weeps that he can never leave this land and can do nothing for her. She takes his knife and runs, leaves Otomo, who tearfully tells her to go, and accepts the film.
At the next fire festival Hasume finds her alone in a mountain hut, and she faints. In fragments she sees Kou dancing at the festival, then fighting the man. Late that night Kana tells her that Hasume has taken his own life, that everything will be sunk in the sea as if it never happened, and that she must never go near Kou again. In Tokyo she wins an award for the film. The last image is of the two of them on his motorbike, her asking him to keep watching her.
Starring
Nana Komatsuas Natsume Mochizuki
A fifteen-year-old teen model uprooted from Tokyo to a seaside town, who falls for Kou and believes he is her god.
Natsume Mochizuki’s story
Natsume meets Kou in Ukigumo and poses for a photographer's book partly to catch his eye; after they kiss, she believes that together they are invincible. Then a stalker lures her into the mountains on the night of the fire festival and tries to rape her. The town gossips, Kou pushes her away, and she closes up. She goes out with Otomo and turns down a film with a rape scene. When Kou weeps that he can never leave the land, she takes his knife, leaves Otomo and accepts the film. After the man finds her again, Kana tells her that he has taken his own life and that she must never go near Kou again. She wins an award for the film. The last image is of her on Kou's motorbike, asking him to keep watching her.
Masaki Sudaas Koichiro Hasegawa
Kou, heir to a line of Shinto priests, who swims in the forbidden sea and acts as if the town belongs to him.
Koichiro Hasegawa’s story
Kou pulls Natsume into the god's sea with him, falls for her and gives her the prayer beads that mark him as heir. On the night of the fire festival the beads she gave him snap; he runs after her and finds her with the stalker, but is knocked down. Having failed to save her, he drifts into a rough crowd and tells her to keep him out of her life. When they meet again by the mountain shrine, he urges her back to her career and weeps that he can never leave the land and can do nothing for her. At the next festival he dances the ritual and fights the man who has come back for her. He stays in the town he cannot leave; in the last image Natsume rides behind him on his motorbike.
Daiki Shigeokaas Katsutoshi Otomo
Kou's childhood friend, a kind, cheerful classmate who stays by Natsume after the attack and becomes her boyfriend.
Katsutoshi Otomo’s story
Otomo is Kou's childhood friend, cheerful and easy-going. At high school, when Natsume eats lunch alone after the attack and the rumours, he is the one who sits down with her. After Kou pushes her away, Otomo takes her to a batting centre, where they talk about what they want to do with their lives, and when she is ill in bed he turns up with music to cheer her. He knows what Kou means to her and says being friends is enough, but tells her he wants to do anything for her and to make her laugh, and they start going out. In a karaoke room she tells him she is leaving for Tokyo to make the film. He sings to her in tears and tells her to go.
Mone Kamishiraishias Kana Matsunaga
A shy classmate who idolised Natsume and has loved Kou since childhood, and who remakes herself in high school.
Ryohei Shimaas Shogo Hirono
A celebrated photographer who shoots Natsume's photo book and later comes back to offer her a film.
Why it matters
Drowning Love takes the shape of a first-love story and puts a crime at its centre. Natsume is fifteen, and her beauty is her work, her power and the reason a stranger stalks and attacks her; afterwards the internet and her school turn what was done to her into gossip, and she is the one who has to shrink. Director Yuki Yamato, adapting George Asakura's manga, films adolescent longing as something close to religious awe: the boy Natsume believes is her god turns out to be a boy who could not save her. Not every critic accepted that an assault should carry so much of a teenage romance; the South China Morning Post's reviewer faulted the film for anchoring its story on it. What lingers is the ending's bargain. A death is sunk in the sea as if it never happened, and a girl's success rests on a secret and a boy left behind.