DVD
Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade
Recent DVD/Video Releases
60
9
xx
Across the Hall
56
Adam
37
Amelia
73
Amreeka
35
Babysitters, The
70
Big Fan
57
Boys Are Back, The
81
Bright Star
71
Bronson
60
Brothers at War
55
Brothers Bloom, The
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
64
Che
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
54
Dare
68
Departures
19
Downloading Nancy
55
Endgame
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
27
Gamer
50
Give Me Your Hand
46
Halloween II
73
House of the Devil, The
94
Hurt Locker, The
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
17
I Hate Valentine's Day
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
83
In the Loop
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
41
Little Ashes
80
Lorna's Silence
33
Love Happens
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
xx
Ministers, The
67
Moon
59
More Than a Game
49
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
28
Pandorum
68
Paranormal Activity
85
Passing Strange
63
Perfect Getaway, A
44
Peter and Vandy
54
Pontypool
35
Post Grad
30
Saw VI
79
Serious Man, A
36
Serious Moonlight
76
Soul Power
40
Spiral
39
St. Trinian's
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
47
Time Traveler's Wife
43
Tru Loved
61
Trucker
47
Weather Girl
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Motofumi Tomikawa
Daisuke Tengan
Shohei Imamura
Yo Henmi (novel)
Directed by: Shohei Imamura
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 3, 2002
DVD: June 24, 2003
Running Time: 119 minutes, Color
Origin: Japan / France
Language(s): Japanese (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho, Mansaku Fuwa, Kazuo Kitamura, Isao Natsuyagi, Yukiya Kitamura, and Hijiri Kojima
An erotic comedy revolving around young woman's emotional state.
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Nonchalantly freaky and uncommonly pleasurable, Warm Water may well be the year's best and most unpredictable comedy.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
May well be Imamura's funniest film; it is also one of his most accomplished. It is the work of a mature artist who has kept his adventurous spirit alive, which he has expressed in a complex and risky work carried off with an effortlessness that comes only from wisdom and experience.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein
While Imamura films generally have their droll moments, this is the most blatantly comic work he's done since the '80s -- richly entertaining and suggestive of any number of metaphorical readings.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Imamura's delight in the infinite oddity of men and women is goofy; it's also, at heart, reverent.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Imamura has said that Warm Water Under a Red Bridge is a poem to the enduring strengths of women. It may also be the best sex comedy about environmental pollution ever made.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
One never knows where "Warm Water" is going and even though the film's objective feels a little fuzzy even at the end a parable on female sexuality? an ode to liberty? there's such a joy in the telling that it doesn't matter terribly.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
This story is unthinkable in a Hollywood movie, but there is something about the matter-of-fact way Saeko explains her problem, and the surprised but not stunned way that Yosuke hears her, that takes the edge off.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Janice Page
No porno flick posing as art. Nor is it science fiction, though it does contain a few scenes with B-movie overtones. This is a deep and meaningful film, ultimately far more poignant than it is titillating.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A movie about love, friendship and finding oneself, and it takes all its subjects very seriously while seeming to treat them with the lightest and most piquant of touches. Like its bizarre heroine, it irrigates our souls.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
There's not enough here to justify the almost two hours.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
The film may be lighter in tone than Imamura's more recent work, but it still has a number of serious things to say about life in contemporary Japan.
Read Full Review >Variety David Stratton
A film with a terrifically engaging concept that overstays its welcome by quite a stretch.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Acute sense of color and offbeat storytelling style aren't enough to make this sometimes sensual fantasy more than a whimsical trifle.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Maintains a light, dainty tone despite the heavy-handed metaphor, but in crossing the Pacific to the U.S., it is bound to leave most viewers dry.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.7 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Yoon Min C. gave it an 8:
Imamura gives us Japan of disappearing opportunities, diminishing energies, distancing relationships where a typical out-of-luck sarariman(salary man)'s place and meaning in life is revitalized thru a burgeoning relationship with a woman who has a tendency to release copius, fountain-like amounts of vaginal fluid when sexually aroused. It's signature Imamura, accentuating the raw, sexual(and turburlent)aspect of human nature, focusing on the feminine principle as the force of life and strength amidst an increasingly sterilizing modernity. Again, we have Imamura's penchant for watery imagery, the often boorish, brutal, and sexually underlined aggressiveness beneath the veneer of civility(in the spirit of Ford's Searchers). As an old directors's latest effort, like Kurosawa and Bunuel's last efforts, it doesn't move into fresh territory but there is a warm glow and an affection for material that has gestated over a long fruitful career. Imamura is, of course, the greatest Japanese director after Mizoguchi and Ichikawa.
Damian P. gave it a 6:
It's a long time since I saw this movie, but I found myself talling a friend about it last night; it just sticks in the mind. I can't remember if I laughed after my jaw dropped to the floor, but this is worth seeing.
Chad S. gave it a 7:
First "Gohatto"(Nagisi), now this. Old Japanese filmmakers sure are spry. If you want to see a geyser emanating from a woman's implicit vagina, here it is, juxtaposed against the trappings of a serious, not puerile movie. Length is a problem, and there's a style of acting, in which angry Japanese men sound like samurai from feudal Japan that might seem like overwrought emoting to American ears. But this is a story you never saw before. Regardless of how you register the material as being bold, or ridiculous; viewers from both camps will find "Warm Water Under a Red Bridge" mildly engrossing.
Hugh gave it a 2:
A ridiculous film, but photographed with style, its only redeeming feature. I was bored to tears.
