This review may contain spoilers
I really wish I had watched this movie before seeing its Chinese adaptation, because this version carries so much more depth and cinematic power.
Plot
100 Yen Love tells the story of Ichiko, a young woman who is unmotivated, unkempt, and stuck in a cycle of sleeping all day, playing video games, and buying her meals from a 100-yen store. She lives without direction, almost invisible in her own life. After a huge fight with her younger sister, Ichiko storms out of the house with all her belongings crammed into two large bags and is forced to start over.
To survive, she takes a part-time job at a 100-yen store, where she meets a strange regular customer everyone calls “Banana Man” because of the absurd amount of bananas he buys. After a series of painful and uncomfortable experiences—and after starting a relationship with him—Ichiko slowly begins to change. What starts as survival eventually turns into something unexpected: she finds her way into boxing, and with it, a path toward transformation.
Sakura Ando is one of those actresses you don’t come across often. After seeing her in Shoplifters, I knew I would always look for her name when choosing a movie. Shee is raw, unfiltered, and incredibly honest. As Ichiko, she gives us a journey to transformation that feels real, authentic and not just cinematic.
When Ichiko joins the boxing gym, nothing changes right away. Her head is still lowered, her shoulders slouched, and she looks completely out of place among the boxers. For a long time, there is no visible progress. And that’s exactly what makes this performance so powerful. The change doesn’t arrive through a dramatic montage but it arrives quietly. Only during her first real match do we finally see how much Ichiko has grown. Just because we don’t see obvious change doesn’t mean nothing is happening. I’d honestly say Ichiko’s transformation is one of the most powerful portrayals of a female character’s growth I’ve seen in cinema in a long time.
One of the reasons boxing becomes so important to Ichiko is respect. In boxing, opponents fight fiercely, but at the end of the match, they embrace. There is sportsmanship. When Ichiko sees this, she is clearly fascinated. For a woman who has been psychologically and sexually abused, discarded, and punished for not fitting social expectations, that final hug may represent something she has never truly had: acknowledgment. Respect. Being seen. In that sense, 100 Yen Love isn’t just about Ichiko’s journey toward self-respect but it becomes our own. And by the time the movie ends, you realize just how deep and quietly powerful this story truly is.
At the same time, the film is also brutally honest about the raw reality of being a woman in a closed, patriarchal society. At every stage of the movie, Ichiko is treated poorly, by her family, by society, and by men. When she experiences sexual assault, she doesn’t react dramatically; she simply moves on, almost as if she already knows nothing will be done. What makes this even heavier is that the world around her doesn’t even know what she has endured. We carry this knowledge with us throughout the entire movie a secret only we know about Ichiko and maybe that’s what makes her journey feel so personal and deeply sentimental.
Plot
100 Yen Love tells the story of Ichiko, a young woman who is unmotivated, unkempt, and stuck in a cycle of sleeping all day, playing video games, and buying her meals from a 100-yen store. She lives without direction, almost invisible in her own life. After a huge fight with her younger sister, Ichiko storms out of the house with all her belongings crammed into two large bags and is forced to start over.
To survive, she takes a part-time job at a 100-yen store, where she meets a strange regular customer everyone calls “Banana Man” because of the absurd amount of bananas he buys. After a series of painful and uncomfortable experiences—and after starting a relationship with him—Ichiko slowly begins to change. What starts as survival eventually turns into something unexpected: she finds her way into boxing, and with it, a path toward transformation.
Sakura Ando is one of those actresses you don’t come across often. After seeing her in Shoplifters, I knew I would always look for her name when choosing a movie. Shee is raw, unfiltered, and incredibly honest. As Ichiko, she gives us a journey to transformation that feels real, authentic and not just cinematic.
When Ichiko joins the boxing gym, nothing changes right away. Her head is still lowered, her shoulders slouched, and she looks completely out of place among the boxers. For a long time, there is no visible progress. And that’s exactly what makes this performance so powerful. The change doesn’t arrive through a dramatic montage but it arrives quietly. Only during her first real match do we finally see how much Ichiko has grown. Just because we don’t see obvious change doesn’t mean nothing is happening. I’d honestly say Ichiko’s transformation is one of the most powerful portrayals of a female character’s growth I’ve seen in cinema in a long time.
One of the reasons boxing becomes so important to Ichiko is respect. In boxing, opponents fight fiercely, but at the end of the match, they embrace. There is sportsmanship. When Ichiko sees this, she is clearly fascinated. For a woman who has been psychologically and sexually abused, discarded, and punished for not fitting social expectations, that final hug may represent something she has never truly had: acknowledgment. Respect. Being seen. In that sense, 100 Yen Love isn’t just about Ichiko’s journey toward self-respect but it becomes our own. And by the time the movie ends, you realize just how deep and quietly powerful this story truly is.
At the same time, the film is also brutally honest about the raw reality of being a woman in a closed, patriarchal society. At every stage of the movie, Ichiko is treated poorly, by her family, by society, and by men. When she experiences sexual assault, she doesn’t react dramatically; she simply moves on, almost as if she already knows nothing will be done. What makes this even heavier is that the world around her doesn’t even know what she has endured. We carry this knowledge with us throughout the entire movie a secret only we know about Ichiko and maybe that’s what makes her journey feel so personal and deeply sentimental.
Was this review helpful to you?
