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<\/a>\nA Korean escort, a porn-star college student, a musician and a policewoman walk into a love hotel and the result is heartbreaking, hilarious and sexy in Ryuichi Hiroki\u2019s (Vibrator) multi-strand drama Kabukicho Love Hotel. Taking place over 24 hours in a Tokyo love hotel the film focuses on pairings of various patrons and workers in the famous red light district. Given Hiroki\u2019s start in indie-pink films you might think a film set in the red light district was a return to form, but the film is more in line with his recent mainstream melodramas: interested in emotional connections than physical ones. Not that there aren\u2019t several racy scenes performed with gusto by the young and attractive cast filled with both pop stars, Atsuko Maeda (AKB48) and Roy (5tion), and up and coming young thespians, Shota Sometani (this year\u2019s Screen International Rising Star Award winner) and Lee Eun-woo (Mobeius). Connections both inane and important are threaded under Hiroki\u2019s deft hands and mistakes and melancholy haunt the characters as they work through their day. An exciting combination of the director\u2019s soft-core start and melodramatic transformation, Kabukicho is a rewarding, steamy and poignant character-driven ensemble drama that looks at the lives of ordinary people as they experience life-changing events.<\/p>\n