Hōtai Club
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Hōtai Club [包帯クラブ] (lit. The Bandage Club) is a Japanese movie directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi that came out in 2007 based on a novel by Tendō Arata. It is rated PG-13 and lasts 118 minutes. This drama stars Yūya Yagira as Dino Tatsuya 'Dino' Ideno (Ideno 'Dino' Tatsuya) and Satomi Ishihara as Emiko 'Wara' Kiba.
[edit] Scenario
After Wara's father left their family, her mom seems to fall into depression and do nothing but drink all day, her brother doesn't seem to care anymore, and Wara herself (a high school student) is drifting from day to day without much interest in life. One day, after being cut by glass accidentally, she meets Dino on the roof of a hospital. Dino's first words to her is his questioning whether she's going to kill herself by jumping off the building. He picks up her fallen bandage and ties it around the one pole of the metal fencing declaring that he fixed the wound on her heart by bandaging the area she was hurt in (supposedly the hospital roof). Their conversation ends with Dino commenting that if Wara wasn't there, he probably would have jumped off and killed himself.
Wara shows her friend since junior high, Shiomi 'Tanshio' Tanzawa, who is played by Shiori Kanjiya, the same type of compassion when Shiomi breaks up with her boyfriend because he asked her to have sex with him by bandaging the swings they were talking by. Shiomi takes a picture of the bandaged swing and posts it on the internet. Through the internet, Shiomi meets Shinichi 'Gimo' Yanagimoto played by Kei Tanaka who suggests that they create the Bandage Club that will accept requests to bandage the place where someone was hurt, take a picture, and post it on their page. Their headquarters are a rented apartment in an office building. Wara protests that they couldn't really create such a club with another person's idea. At the time, Wara did not know Dino's name but knew his school by his uniform. In the end, she was forced to go to the school by Shiomi and Gimo in search of Dino.
After Dino had agreed to join their club, Wara is still hesitant about the club and feels that it is naive. However, she still joins in on bandaging areas because she knows that the bandaids do help heal wounds of the heart. Wara, Shiomi, and Gimo find out that Dino is self-destructive and often ends up in the hospital when they watch him light the firecrackers he strapped to himself while he is contained in a tent.
As the story progresses, Wara and Shiomi think of inviting the other two girls in their group of friends, Risuki Ashizawa and Akari 'Tempo' Motohashi, from junior high when they take a picture of two friends who had broken apart (picture of two people, played by Wara and Shiomi, shaking hands while wrapped in bandaids. Risuki; played by Chiaki Satō and Tempo; played by Megumi Seki;had fallen out of their friendship by an argument. Wara and Shiomi find Risuki and convince her to come with them to Tempo's house in a newly built high-class building. Wara and Shiomi invite Risuki and Tempo to join their Bandage Club but both refuse; Risuki claiming that it was stupid and Tempo stating that it was a waste of time that should be spent studying to get into college; both believe that what happens to others is none of their business. During their high-tension reunion ends in a repeat of what happened in junior high. Tempo brushing off those who leave school or do not go to university or college as losers with no future and Risuki telling her that many have no choice but to work to support their families. Risuki finishes by announcing that the building, that Tempo is rich enough to live in, used to be the factory where her father worked and stormed out. Shiomi immediately runs after Risuki but Wara stays to explain to Tempo her original feelings about the club and how she too had though of it as a waste of time but saw how it really helped others. She then leaves just when Tempo's mother comes home.
Outside the building, Wara finds Risuki and Shiomi joined by Dino and Gimo. When Risuki catches sight of the small wildflowers near the fencing of the building that were originally planted by her father when he worked at the factory and marveled at how the small flowers had endured. She then decides to join their club.
Soon after the bandage club began to gain popularity, they are accused of violating private property rights and trespassing. There is someone who wants to end the Bandage Club's activities badly enough to report the locations to the police in order to stop them; this person also posts hate messages on their website.
Just when Wara, Dino, Shiomi, Gimo, and Risuki consider breaking up the Bandage Club; they are called by Tempo's mother who tells them Tempo is missing and fears that she might commit suicide. Tempo comes out of hiding in the end when Dino bandages an entire building's rooftop and agrees to join the Bandage Club amidst tears and the reunion of the four members Japanese Language Group. Dino is caught by the police but was bailed by his father who turns out to a in extremely influential politician.
The movie soon delves into Dino's past and his junior high school experience where one of his two closest friends stabs the other when they were alone at his house causing the other to be paralyzed from the waist down. Wara helps Dino deal with his past and finally crossing the bridge, that he refused to cross before when they were to bandage a spot on the other side, that led to the house of his friend that had been stabbed to finally confront him. Dino believes that it was his fault that his friend was stabbed and his other friend was convicted for attack and sent to a special school because he was not there that day when he was supposed to be and that his friend that got stabbed had taken the knife instead of him. Dino writes a letter to the friend that had stabbed his other friend and is told that he probably would've been stabbed instead if he was there. Dino then visits his friend that got stabbed and his friend wants to join their Bandage Club.
The movie ends with the possible, but not definitive, romance between Wara and Dino.
