Love & Peace

Given the adult nature of his previous work (Guilty of Romance, Tokyo Tribe), the prospect of Japanese writer/director Sion Sono making a film aimed at family audiences comes as quite a surprise. It's the story of a put-upon office dogsbody (Hiroki Hasegawa) who realises his rock-star dreams because of the love shown to him by his tiny pet turtle, Pikadon. But as our hero's ego grows, so does his magical amphibious benefactor - with both reaching monster-like proportions. Sono fashions his genre-defying tale expertly, the manic comic energy of the early scenes settling into something more soulful as the action shifts to the city's sewers, where a good-natured drunk tends to all the lost toys and pets that find refuge there. Equal parts fairy tale, lonely hearts romance, music-industry satire and kaiju spectacle, this is fun, far out and genuinely heartbreaking by turns. And the sneaked-in messages about our fickle consumerist society are sure to provoke a response from younger viewers as well those old enough to know better.