After a failed romance, a temperamental young biker meets a carefree rural girl while riding through her island hometown and gets her obsessed with riding a motorcycle.
“His Motorbike, Her Island” is my second exposure to director Nobuhiko Obayashi. His most famous work, the 1977 cult horror film “House,” was my first. Those familiar with that film will have a better idea of what to expect from this 1986 drama. More subtle and less bizarre than “House,” “His Motorbike, Her Island” still offers a challenging viewing experience from the idiosyncratic director.
Following his breakup with his girlfriend Fuyumi (Noriko Watanabe), biker Koh (Riki Takeuchi) hits the road. In the countryside, he meets Miyo (Kiwaka Harada). As the pair fall in love, Miyo quickly becomes fascinated with motorcycles and the biking lifestyle. Her deepening passion for biking culture begins to complicate their romance.
While the plot is straightforward, the storytelling devices Obayashi uses are not. Shifting aspect ratios and color palettes sets the tone of the movie, creating a dreamlike, nostalgic feel for Koh’s remembrances. The constant shifts between color and black and white are disorienting. Are the black and white segments memories, or is Obayashi playing with chronology? It’s not entirely clear, making the film hard to follow.
Cult Epics delivers Obayashi’s film on Blu-ray in a presentation that leaves room for improvement. The opening minutes are window-boxed, as though preparing to transition to a scope ratio. Instead, it shifts to a pillar-boxed full-frame image before finally settling into a flat widescreen ratio. Given Obayashi’s playful visual aesthetic and my inexperience with the film, it’s difficult to tell if this is intentional or an authoring error.
Visually, the black-and-white sequences look sharp and balanced, but the color sections appear faded, lacking vibrancy. The subtitles, labelled “new improved” on the box, are a different issue. At times, the letter “I” and the number “1” are replaced by a vertical symbol, and one line of dialogue is rendered as a string of nonsense characters. By contrast, audio is clean, clear, and free of issues.
The extras on this disc are plentiful. They include a commentary track by Sam Deighan, visual essays by Esther Rosenfield and Alex Pratt, an archival interview with Obayashi, and a collection of trailers. Rosenfield situates the film in the broader biker genre, while Pratt focuses on the filming location. Deighan’s commentary is the highlight, offering details on the director and his filmography as well as contextualizing the film. This edition features a slipcover, reversible artwork, and a booklet. The booklet is entirely in Japanese, but based on Obayashi’s interview, it’s probably a replication of the original press booklet.
As a Blu-ray disc, this release is a mixed bag. While the extras are worthwhile, the suspected authoring errors detract from this release. Since the movie is the main selling point, it makes it hard to recommend this release.
Available on Blu-ray™ from CULT EPICS
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