Mikie Hara – Celeb to Binbou (April 23rd, 2010)
E-Net Frontier
Catalog # – ENFD-5211 – Region 2 Disc – 16:9 Aspect
Running Time: 96 minutes

The Skinny: The fabulous Mikie Hara returns to our pages, this time in a gravure DVD that has a very slender plot. However, the presence of any plot, even a slender one like this, is noteworthy for this genre. Briefly, it comes down to Mikie playing two roles: a poor girl who we meet at the beginning of the DVD asleep like a castaway on a beach. Then later we find Mikie in another role – that of a rich celebrity. One is beautiful, sweet, and giving. The other is beautiful, haughty, and demanding.

The two of them intersect at the beach, at a restaurant where poor Mikie is a waitress and celeb Mikie is a stuck-up customer, and they even have a tennis match which didn’t make a lot sense plot wise but it did show us that Mikie is somewhat athletic and that she’s had experience with tennis. At the end of the DVD there’s a brief scene, including a split screen so we can see both of them at the same time, in the restaurant, and apparently they have now become friends. As I said, it is a very slender plot.

So, once more, as the DVD begins, there’s Mikie asleep on the beautiful Guam beach. We don’t know if she is a survivor from a sea disaster or anything about her. She seems somewhat confused that she is on the beach, or why she is on the beach, so she must pinch her own cheek to make sure she is not dreaming.

After that she will wander about on the beach.

After a brief fade out, we next find Mikie now cast fishing into the surf. No explanation is offered as to where Mikie located a fishing rod. Actually no explanation is needed. Along comes a woman in a sun dress, a parasol, and huge sun glasses. This is Mikie as the celebrity. We have our first meeting of between the Celeb and the Binbou.

The rich girl is up next. She’s taking the sun, so the long dress goes away and the sun screen lotion comes into play. Celeb Mikie then poses and looks very cute in her yellow bikini.

Meanwhile, homeless Mikie finds an abandoned building – no doors, no windows – and she decides to make it her home.Finding a few odds and ends, soon Mikie is having a dinner – canned food of course. But now, with a roof over her head, and a stomach that no longer is growling for food, things are looking up.

The rich Mikie is in bed for her next scene.She’s talking with someone before the posing commences. She’ll take off the white blouse and her unmentionables are in black.

Then later that afternoon, or maybe it is the next day, rich Mikie goes out for lunch, and we discover that poor Mikie is the waitress. It is in this brief chapter that we get our first split screen image of the two them. Eventually celeb Mikie leaves and what we get next is waitress Mikie doing some cleaning around the pub’s pool table before she removes her baseball hat and her apron to pose in just a bikini.

Next, Rich Mikie joins her boyfriend in a car. At first she acts all modest and tries to cover up her cleavage when the boy friend looks in that direction. Of course her attitude will change as the scene progresses.

Tennis is next. That’s rich Mikie in the whites and poor Mikie in the more colorful tennis outfit. Poor Mikie is no match for the rich Mikie who has her running all over the court until she’s exhausted and collapses. This will lead to poor Mikie stripping down to her bikini. Not to be out-done, rich Mikie does the same. If you are watching – the colors tell all. Poor Mikie has blue sneakers and rich Mikie has white ones.

Later we find poor Mikie washing her clothes in the sea. She finds a few trees in coastal mangrove setting where she can hang her clothes up to dry. The of course, she will treat us to some posing in a bikini which she wears beneath her coveralls.

Rich Mikie comes next in a luxury bath setting. At first she’s submerged beneath a ton of soap bubbles. We only see her head. Later she’ll climb out and do some rinsing off.

The finale has rich Mikie back at the bar for lunch. Mikie the waitress suggests the superb hamburger. “Sugoi,” she says – amazing. They both say the same thing afterward in a split screen and both smile. Friends forever? Fade out. This is the end of the main chapters.

There’s about 11 minutes of behind the scenes that follow in the extra or bonus chapter. Mikie looks great in this section as she is herself, and isn’t ‘in character’. Just wonderful stuff.

Summary: As always, you will find Mikie Hara to be beautiful, charming, lively, engaging, and very pleasing to watch. The plotline requiring Mikie to play two roles didn’t add a whole lot to the video, but it was cute and done about as well as they could within the budget for a gravure video.

I liked the music and I liked the spirit that Mikie always brings to her DVDs. It’s not a perfect DVD but I will score it at four point five and recommend it.

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