Koki is bullied by other students at elementary school. Wakaba, who can’t stand it, protects Koki from the students. Wakaba is also bullied at school, but then strange incidents start happening around Wakaba, and continue to do so as she grows into adulthood…
Grimmfest Says: Starting as a seemingly sweet and sentimental tale of childhood friendship flowering against the odds, then suddenly switching to someplace… strange, Kenichi Ugana’s jaw-dropping feature takes a riotous roller-coaster ride through genre convention, encompassing dark and deadly romance, satiric slasher movie, bizarro psychological thriller and even some martial arts mayhem. Simultaneously celebrating and subverting every trick and trope it touches, the film skewers predatory toxic masculinity with savage precision. Eccentric, absurdist, unsettling, and entirely unpredicable, yet with a core of serious intent, LOVE WILL TEAR US APART confirms Ugana as a major voice in contemporary genre cinema, ready to take his place among such wild cards as Sion Sono, Takashi Miike and Teruo Ishii. Grimmfest is delighted to be hosting the UK Premiere here in Manchester, birthplace of Joy Division, whose music inspired the film’s title.
