In-Flight Film Time: Miko Girl 巫女っちゃけん。(2018) Japanese

Alice Hirose, Taiki Yamaguchi, Megumi, Naoko Iijima, Lily Franky

Movie rating: 8/10     Neck score: A

This might not have been the best pick to watch on a plane. I'm not sure Japanese movies are in general. Well, certain genres, which this fits into, are not the best. They tend to be quiet and slow paced. Because of the noise of the plane, I really couldn't hear what they said half the time. I knew they said something though, because I had the subtitles, so at least I still knew what was going on. But I really could only hear people when they were upset and shouting, and then it was too loud because I kept turning it up trying to hear the tone of their voices as they said something. But, I liked the movie well enough in spite of that. I would have preferred to watch it without all the background noise that made it hard to hear though.

It is about a reluctant shine maiden who got into the business because her father is the chief priest. The shine is also losing money, and somehow her blase attitude makes her a scapegoat. She is constantly being "tutored" by the other maidens and priests which comes off a bit as bullying because of her dissatisfaction in her life in general. She is looking for a new job so she can quit working at the shrine, but she is blase about life in general and doesn't really have any dreams or ambition apart from getting away from the shrine. Then she finds a kid who is clearly lost/a runaway and she ends up caring for him as she is forced to take care of him.


Then the drama happens as the kid comes back with a bruise after they finally send him home with his mom. So there is talk of child abuse and she ends up having to figure out what she wants in life and what is holding her back. It's a slow moving, self-discovery movie about a lost girl who finds herself through helping a lost boy. It's message, which I thought was lovely, was that life isn't fair. We don't get to pick our parents or our kids, but we should protect each other nonetheless because they are who we were given to protect. We should make the most out of the life we've been given and that when we try to protect and understand each other, we're not so different as we think. We can also heal each other. Through the movie she realizes she has more of a connection to her father than she thought, and that her mom abandoning her doesn't have to define her or ruin her life. Also, perhaps learning not to turn her back on tradition? It's cute, but very... Japanese? I think if I wasn't familiar with Japanese films, history, and culture, I probably wouldn't have liked it or even understood it. But if you do, you might like it. Just watch it where you can actually hear it.