RSSYuriko Shiratori – Like A Flower
10 Nov 2007 Comments Off
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Yuriko Shiratori – Like A Flower (2007)
Takeshobo
Catalogue # TSDV-41128 – Region 2 Disc
The Skinny: An excellent release from Takeshobo. This is not just another cookie-cutter styled Gravure Idol DVD. First off, they went to Koh Samui rather than Phuket or Pattaya. Second, just like Koh Samui has its own life style and pace, different from Phuket, this DVD also has a separate and distinct style, and it’s a very cool style.
There’s a montage which begins as a series of stills and expands into full screen full motion video. It is followed by a split screen verbal intro by Yuriko. The dual images are are simultaneous – one close and one further away.
We see Yuriko on a back street in a sleepy town. There’s not much activity on the street. Aside from an occasional motorcycle passing by, we see no one else. But we hear people chatting. These people are in the open front store where Yuriko is standing.
She’s dressed in ragged jeans and a white tank top with a peace symbol. Just another ‘hippie chick’ waiting for something. While standing there she pops in some bubble gum -and she’s pretty good at blowing bubbles.
OK, you’re saying, “And then what?” She enters a building a hangs out on the staircase. She seems hot. This is when we first discover this is Thailand as we really had no visual clues before. We know this by the Thai script on some signs in this building. It may be an apartment house or it may be an inexpensive ‘backpacker’ hotel. Still no action to speak of other than Yuriko stretching her top so we can see her modest sized bra-encased breasts.
After the fadeout we see Yuriko in a bed. She will talk to us, and this is the first of many of these talking events.
Next we have the lanky Yuriko outdoors. Again I must state that she is quite tall, seemingly much more so than your standard gravure idol. She also wears her hair much longer than usual. So the overall effect is that she is very striking, exotic, and very unusual like a flower that you’ve not seen before. Now we understand the title.
I don’t know what it is – her hair, her beautiful skin, her full lips, or her stunning eyes that I find so captivating. By the end of this review, maybe some one else can offer up a comment.
Yuriko wears a feathery and see through green wrapper over a print bikini in the next scene. The set is a room with a billiards/pool table. The windows are wide open, and the natural light is just right. A cool jazzy score plays beneath the visuals.
It is during this scene that I realize that despite the lack of action in all of the scenes so far, the editing and pacing plus the variation of the camera angles, are what make these visuals so delicious.
Remember that building we saw in scene 2 where Yuriko was just hanging out. We’re back there. She enters the stark room. Really just a big bed with clean white sheets. The room is empty beyond this. Yuriko will lie down on the bed. The tank top and her jeans come off. The solo piano provides the music.
Another session of Yuriko talking to us is next. This is the second time we’ve heard from Yuriko from this very same bedroom.
In the next chapter, Yuriko is in a out-of-way area with some dwelling that are by the water. This is an area that we as tourists never see. The buildings are old and weather worn. The wooden walking planks look dangerously old in and in poor repair. Some of the homes are nothing more than corrugated tin hammered up on wooded supports. This is a very poor place.
But Yuriko and crew have decided to shoot a scene here. She wears a short skirt made of gossamer which will flutter upward at the slightest breeze. Yuriko enters one of the huts… we see the syn through multiple holes in the walls. You’d think that no one could live here.
But we see a clean towel and a clean bed. It is here that Yuriko will again strip down to a bikini. This scene is literally no different that the bed scene in the backpacker hotel…but the repetitiveness won’t matter as you can’t take your eyes off the model.
Another talk follows – a different place and a different day.
Next location is some sort of a park. Yuriko wears a blue bathing suit that is technically not a bikini, but is more bikini-ish than the one piece that it is. The camera work includes some three sixties and one eighties around Yuriko.
While the camera work was great – this scene suffers from too much light and too much concrete as backgrounds while she just walks about.
In the next scene, we go back to natural light and it is a simple scene. Yuriko pours herself a glass of ice-water to cool. Not much happens but the closeups will capture her beautiful eyes again and again making this a very nice look at her.
The third return to the bedroom is next.Only this time she’s not talking. This is straight posing. Again we have a solo piano as the music. This scene is very inviting and warm. Yuriko gives us lots of eye contact and warmth exudes from her smiles as she does little more than roll around in the bed.
A bath and shower scene is next. This bathroom has a window as a wall and we can look back into the same bed we just ‘shared’ with Yuriko.The only thing missing from this scene was the soap.
This is followed by another brief talk. Then Yuriko appears in a clingy and sheer dress. So far, except for the tank top, all of her dresses or wraps have been either gauzy or sheer, or should I say see-through. The only misstep in this scene is having her wear a tiara.
An outdoor shower and a black bikini follow. Yuriko actually gets her hair wet in this scene as she circles around the water stream. This looks like the first scene in the DVD that was played for fun.
The pool scene is next. First they have employed a zoom lens so we see Yuriko at times with infinite depth of field and other times the zoom is employed so the background goes out of focus. Second they have shot some of this scene from just above water level, which is a very unusual level for the gravure idol genre. And finally, this pool scene was shot at a time when we didn’t have the high sun and the glare that must accompany a midday shooting.
A short ending message spoken by Yuriko follows and after the credits we get some beautiful beach shots as the late afternoon sunlight wanes.
Summary: Another intriguing DVD by Yuriko. She really is an exotic flower.
Though this is a gravure idol DVD, they avoided many of the cliched scenes we’ve had to endure recently. For example there are no lollipops or ice creams on a stick. There are no scenes implying some sexual content. No shopping. No cooking. And no sports. And one more thing – this DVD includes a running jump into the deep end of the pool by the model. I can’t think of when I had seen that before.
What will sell this DVD is the superb craftsmanship of the production and the model’s beauty. No doubt this one gets a four point two five and a big RECOMMENDED signoff from me.
