TRAIFF 2023: Okiku and the World Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Who would’ve guessed that the literal gutter would be the jumping off point for a class commentary period drama but that is what audiences should expect from the Japanese film, Okiku and the World. Offering moments of solid, though not necessarily groundbreaking, commentary in between bouts of toiler humor, some may be unable to reconcile with both. Starting off a little rough as the film tries to find the right balance between the two, it eventually finds its footing and does an admirable job at pulling audiences into 19th century Japan through its beautiful black-and-white cinematography. That being said, it takes on a lot while its short running time, clocking in at 90-minutes, doesn’t exactly help its case. The pieces are there but it’s easy to want more as the film is merely another case of its pieces outweighing their whole. Though more character development would have helped overall, Kuroki, Satô, and Ikematsu each make the most of it, delivering strong grounding performances. In particular, the dynamic between the latter two is easily the best part of the film.

Okiku and the World is set near the end of the Edo period in Japan and doesn’t waste any time warning audiences what they are getting themselves into. Offering a different take on samurai culture, as they and their protector roles were phased out, the class divide remained. Okiku (Kuroki), a schoolteacher and the daughter of a samurai, found herself far removed from those glory days but a social status gap still existed. One day, she would meet a peasant young man named Chuji (Kanichiro), a former waste paper collector turned apprentice poop collector working under a man named Yusuke (Ikematsu), selling their collections to farmers to support themselves. In spite of that contrast between them, there was something about Chuki that caught her eye as she had love in her sights. Both seen as the lowest of the low, Yusuke and Chuji faced plenty of tough times as a result of their profession as an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness set in. However, the possibilities of the world was cause for hope. 

While no one would have guessed that poop would play a vital role in any film, let alone this one, it was an effective and outside the box way to bring it all together. Playing up the toilet humor perhaps a little too strong, the eccentric cast of characters across the communities where Yusuke and Chuji were making their collections bordered on irritating. In the end, the story would ultimately break through as it saw its characters emerge from the bleakness of their circumstances as they tried to find their place in the world. While strong, the film failed to tap enough into those introspective moments. Nevertheless Kuroki, Satô, and Ikematsu make it work. Though there were not enough scenes with Kuroki and Satô to allow the Okiku and Chuji subplot to fully develop, the chemistry of Satô and Ikematsu as Chuji and Yusuke made them a blast to watch.

At the end of the day. Okiku and the World is a simple yet beautiful and compelling period drama whose outside the box approach doesn’t quite work but those who are okay with the gutter should be fine.

*still courtesy of Fantasia*

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.