Some genres of Japanese movies are hard to "place" for Westerners, since they have no precise Hollywood equivalent. The ero guro (erotic and grotesque) genre, for example, is often lumped into the horror category by overseas festivals and DVD distributors, but the films are usually less about jack-in-the-box scares than forbidden sexual desires, set in a borderland between dream and reality.
Based on the second of three "Nanase" novels by Yasutaka Tsutsui, Kazuya Konaka's "Nanase Futatabi: The Movie (Nanase Again)" would seem to be straight-ahead sci-fi. The mind-reading heroine, Nanase (Sei Ashina), joins with similarly psychically gifted companions to battle a mysterious organization that wants to wipe their kind off the face of the Earth.
The film, though, has the look and feel of a broodingly romantic ad for, depending on the scene, women's fashion, makeup or shampoo. Ashina, who starred in the ill-fated international coproduction "Silk," as well as the underrated Japanese comedy "Kazura" ("Wig"), is impeccably put together, and she is often posed against the dramatic natural beauty of Hokkaido. Watching the play of light and shadow on those perfect cheekbones and the wind gently tossing that flawlessly styled hair, I half expected to see a product logo flash on the screen.