Linda Linda Linda | Telescope Film
Linda Linda Linda

Linda Linda Linda (リンダ リンダ リンダ)

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  • Japan
  • 2005
  • · 114m

Director Nobuhiro Yamashita
Cast Bae Doona, Aki Maeda, Yuu Kashii, Shiori Sekine, Takayo Mimura, Shione Yukawa
Genre Comedy, Music

Only three days before their high school festival, guitarist Kei (Yu Kashii), drummer Kyoko (Aki Maeda), and bassist Nozumi (Shiori Sekine) are forced to recruit a new lead vocalist for their band. They choose Korean exchange student Son (Bae Doo-Na), though her comprehension of Japanese is a bit rough! It’s a race against time as the group struggles to learn three tunes for the festival’s rock concert—including a classic '80s punk-pop song by the Japanese group The Blue Hearts called “Linda Linda”...

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What are critics saying?

100

San Francisco Chronicle

Sounds like silly fun -- and Linda Linda Linda is -- but it is also an extremely well-written, emotionally complex coming-of-age tale that has a John Hughesian respect for teenage angst.

88

Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

These girls can cook, and Yamashita captures them with an austere, unhurried visual style that has been rightly compared to rock aficionado/filmmakers Aki Kaurismaki ("Ariel") and Jim Jarmusch ("Mystery Train"). [8 Dec 2006, p.2]

83

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker

Where you might expect either overheated teen melodrama or cartoonish farce, Nobuhiro creates a lively, engaging, character-driven piece with flourishes of offbeat humor dancing around the dynamics of the foursome as they pull together in rehearsals.

75

Boston Globe by Wesley Morris

As directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita , the sluggish haze between extracurricular activities is exquisitely captured and framed, then patiently edited. Every shot feels like a gift.

70

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

The irritations and tedium of high school life are staged with refreshing simplicity, while the performers interact with an age-appropriate naturalness the American teenage movie rarely achieves.

30

Variety by Dennis Harvey

This aimless, lifeless time-killer about four teenage girls prepping for their rock-band gig in a school talent show proves entirely the wrong choice.