Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

tedg What a joy.Most folks will focus on the warm water part of this. Its the story, rich in social commentary, Japanese mythology and sexual politics. Its pleasant enough I suppose, but for my taste it is barely adequate to support the real matter of this, the red bridge part.You see, sometimes it is enough to simply tell, and it almost matters not what is told, so long as it doesn't distract. Its the Van Gogh approach, I suppose, where he could literally plunk himself anywhere with proper light and paint what he encounters. Chair, tree, field. What matters to us is the manner of how he sees, and how he can convey that. Its the composition of his mind and how he tells a story about that while fooling us into thinking the story with the sound is the thing.Now, I like it better when its all integrated. but I'll take this too. What he does is typical of Japanese filmmakers, and indeed many Japanese artists. Each moment needs to breath within its own world, and that world confined only by the limits of its breath. Everything has to be balanced in a way that it seems to have grown that way with intrinsic wholeness.His method -- also typical of Japanese film -- is to see the frame of scene as the horizon of these microworlds. By this is mean both the visible frame of the sides of what we see, but most particularly its depth and the stroke between the points of beginning and end. Its not quite painterly because its a composition rooted in movement, and these dynamics are never to be found in static images.The story talks of a treasure hidden in this location. Toward the end, the story makes explicit that the treasure is the womb, the source of all rivers. You have to make the small leap to finish the fold, that each episode you see is a visit to a womb, the fresh smells of small life conveyed.What a joy.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

screaminmimi It's sad to know there will be no more new Imamura films. I think the previous reviewer is probably lacking a sense of fun. This isn't drivel; it's wicked fun. In the same way he dissects small-town vs. big-city attitudes in "The Eel," Imamura shows us how disconnected from real life the corporate world of Tokyo can make a man by thrusting him into the chaos of joblessness where everything he knows is useless. This is an opportunity to see the ever-hot Koji Yakusho at his James Stewart/Buster Keatonesque best in a story that's worthy of García-Márquez, for its utterly plausible mix of the other-worldly with the down-to-earth. I gave it a 9 out of 10 because Imamura seems to be mystified enough by women that he doesn't flesh out their characters as much as they might deserve, but the mystification is part of the story in this case. Great score, too!

maricchie Warm Water Under a Red Bridge directed by the prolific Shohei Imamura follows the life of Yosuke Sasano played by Koji Yakusho. The film has many rich layers and mythic qualities. After losing his job, Yosuke seeks advice from a vagrant wise man name Taro, played by Kazuo Kitamura. Taro ultimately sends Yosuke on a quest to find a hidden golden budda statue. Itfs not so much the statue thatfs important we learn when Yosuke travels to a small fishing village to a house beside the red bridge where we meet Saeko Aizawa who befriends Yosuke to releases her body of water from her very strange condition.The filling water in Saeko body symbolizes her loneliness and her heaviness of heart to find someone in her life. The gag where Yosuke relieves Seikofs water is fun the first time but soon becomes repetitive. The characters in the story are disjointed from each other but this is not nessearly a bad thing since Imamura has so much to show us. For instance there is a subplot involving an African marathon runner which is used clearly for comic relief but and has nothing to do with the rest of the story. But its characters like this that adds multiple dimensions to the story that really make it memorable.One thing that confused me was that there was a scene of Saeko almost drowned in the river when she was small and it makes audience imagine that it was probably the cause of flood in her body. However, in the end of the movie we will know that her grandma also had the same sexual predisposition contradicting the river scene.Overall the film is worth watching for the quirkiness of the characters. A man who just lost his job, homeless people, fishermen, a senile old lady, an African marathon runner, there are a lot of unique characters in this movie. They are people at the bottom of the Japanese social pyramid and something we usually do not see in the movie. The story is a kind of silly, erotic, and funny. Although not a perfect film the fountain spewing sex scenes will be remembered for a long time.

fearfuljesuit This movie definitely had some flaws, not-so slight repetitiveness being the most glaring. However, I give it an 8, because the more I think about it, the more I like it.If there has ever been a more effulgent, effluvient celebration of feminine sexuality on screen, I haven't seen it.Seemingly infantile at first, the film continues to mature in my estimation. For instance, when the granddaughter confronts the salary man with her belief that he's only with her because she satisfies his kink, it comes across quite clearly as the primal scream erupting from that nagging "You only want me because fill-in-your-own-neuroses" doubt that most woman have felt in many relationships, at least fleetingly.There are several such moments in the movie, but it is more of a fantasy romp than a psychological study or feminist manifesto, so I'll leave it there.Good fun, attractive leads, check it out.