by Matt Kaufman (Hollywood Japan File, Kansai Time Out Magazine 09/2006)
We’ve all heard the urban legend about a guy who walks into a bar, blacks out and ends up in an alley with stitches where his appendix used to be.
Michael (Nigel Randell) is a burned-out English teacher in Kyoto who is taken to a seedy dive-bar filled with surreal characters right out of a modern Alice in Wonderland. He meets a mysterious woman named Kiyo (Yoshiko Matsuda) who seems to be in a hurry to seduce him. Swiss filmmaker Roger Walch (”Lost Island”) does an impressive job of capturing the distinct flavor of underground culture in Kyoto such as the performance art group Shinbun Onna who do fascinating things with newspapers. There’s also Bar Hachimonjiya, a watering hole filled with books and junk that looks like it hasn’t changed since beatniks lived in Kyoto. Yuwaku 3 is the last part of a trilogy that deals with seduction in Japan.
