Snakes and Earrings

蛇にピアス ‧ Movie ‧ 2008
Snakes and Earrings poster
6.9
Your Rating: 0/10
Ratings: 6.9/10 from 765 users
# of Watchers: 1,860
Reviews: 3 users
Ranked #10751
Popularity #7149
Watchers 765

Lui is nineteen years old, beautiful, bored and unmotivated. When she meets Ama in a bar, she finds herself mesmerized by his forked tongue and moves in with him and has her own tongue pierced. Determined to push her boundaries further, she asks Amas friend Shiba to design an exquisite tattoo for her back. But what Shiba demands as payment for the tattoo leads Lui into a brutal and explicit love triangle like no other. Then, after a violent encounter on the backstreets of Tokyo, Ama vanishes and Lui must face up to the reality of her life. Snakes and Earrings (Hebi ni piasu) is a based on the novel of the same name by then 21 year old writer Hitomi Kanehara. The novel went on to win the prestigious Akutagawa Prize and sold a million copies. (Source: AsianMediaWiki) Edit Translation

  • English
  • magyar / magyar nyelv
  • dansk
  • Norsk
  • Country: Japan
  • Type: Movie
  • Release Date: Sep 20, 2008
  • Duration: 2 hr. 3 min.
  • Score: 6.9 (scored by 765 users)
  • Ranked: #10751
  • Popularity: #7149
  • Content Rating: 15+ - Teens 15 or older

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Snakes and Earrings Japanese Movie photo
Snakes and Earrings Japanese Movie photo
Snakes and Earrings Japanese Movie photo
Snakes and Earrings Japanese Movie photo
Snakes and Earrings Japanese Movie photo
Snakes and Earrings Japanese Movie photo

Reviews

Completed
Elena
11 people found this review helpful
Jan 4, 2016
Completed 0
Overall 9.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10
It's 5 am. I'm tired.
I like the music. It was used in the right moments. That's good.
Also, I liked their appearance. Not what you would see in regular movies.
Acting was good.
At frist I was creeped out, but later I got used to it.
The story itself isn't that much, but it will definitely keep you amused. You'll want to know what happens in the end.
In the beginning i had no idea this movie is going to be about what it is, so ....well nothing, I just watched it.
And the end was a bit confusing.
I didn't dislike anything particulary. Maybe the main redhead's personality, I felt sorry for him throughout the whole movie. And the other guy will give you creeps. I'm not sure what to think about him.
I will definitely rewatch this movie, so if you're a fan of weird stuff you'll like it too.
*update (i watched it again) :
- there's like 6 characters
- their backstory doesn't exist( in the movie; )

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Completed
monstersnroses
0 people found this review helpful
Sep 25, 2025
Completed 0
Overall 7.5
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 7.0

Epic yandere romance disguised as heartbreaking tale of dysfunctional love.

This story brings yandere love down to a street-level, where it doesn't feel like the mythical obsessive character of anime, but rather like someone you might brush with in real life. It tones it down and explains it, without attempting to justify it. This is - at least to my mind - a heartbreaking tale of 3 people who are all to one degree or another yandere. It all seems so innocuous at first, but by the time the movie is over, you can see the outline of an epic, twisted tale lying beneath it that was never really shown, and yet there it is.

I say 'a heartbreaking tale' because I have a fairly healthy psyche, and it just pains me to see victims of child abuse grow up into such confused people with so much pain, trying to cope with no one to rely on. It's not that the story itself is heartbreaking, just that the characters are.

There is a lot more going on psychologically than what the movie shows you, and you have to infer or extrapolate it. For instance someone is talking to cops, and they are describing a violent act that occurred. But the movie never shows it. In this sense, there are deeper inferences in this story than just what you get on the surface, and some pieces you have to put together yourself. Other things are shown in greater detail, such as piercings, fights, or certain intimate scenes. But though there are several intimate moments between the characters throughout the story, you aren't shown all of them like a smut film. You are only shown certain moments, so it's not as gratuitous as it seems at first. The explicit nature of some intimate scenes are done in a way to portray sensuality and pain being two sides of the same coin.

As an S&M romance this isn't my cup of tea. But as an occasional student of abnormal psych, I can at least understand it. However, aside from being a romance, this is also a sort of mystery plot (I suppose you could say?), and that part was fun to me. The story needed a great deal of depth coming from the characters for it to work, and these actors did a really great job. With lesser actors this probably would have been unwatchable.

And then there's the ending. For some people who are really really in love with truly yandere ML, this might be seen as an HE. Other people are only going to see the OE that it shows you on the surface. Or think that the HE is just way too sinister and mentally back away from actually calling it an HE or seeing it as one. I personally didn't like the ending because I view the idea of penning some poetic/mysterious/vague lines and slapping an OE on a story a copout. I really do. I know it's a distinctly 'Japanese' thing to do and is not that uncommon an ending in a Japanese tale, but I'm sorry I don't like it. I find it very low-effort and too simplistic. But that is what they did here, and I was mildly displeased with it.

This IS worth a one-time watch at minimum, so I gave it a 7.5 because it's decent. The direction and production were spot on, the styling was great, the actors were excellent.

The basic story is awesome af, but I don't like the way that story was fleshed out by the original novel author. The novel did win awards and receive critical acclaim, but it was written by a very very young adult and to me that shows. I think the story would have been a stronger one if it had had a stronger author with more experience and weight. But the fact remains that the plot itself - which is truly artistically awesome af - was penned by that very same author so it's a take it or leave it situation. I think this story would absolutely SLAY with a good solid rewrite.

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Details

  • Title: Snakes and Earrings
  • Type: Movie
  • Format: Feature Film
  • Country: Japan
  • Release Date: Sep 20, 2008
  • Duration: 2 hr. 3 min.
  • Content Rating: 15+ - Teens 15 or older

Statistics

  • Score: 6.9 (scored by 765 users)
  • Ranked: #10751
  • Popularity: #7149
  • Watchers: 1,860

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