Ok, here I'll disagree with my fellows reviewers... It's a first!

This movie didn't work for me, apart from Tori's acting that was superb! Ryou's expression when he catches the real feeling/emotion from his clients is super!

In my opinion , the way the sex scenes had been shown was more pornographic/graphic than necessary, even if the theme is prostitution into complex situations.

Of course, it's a dark movie with broken, incomplete lives that end up interlaced so, over emotions and pain are part of it... But the interaction between Midou Shizuka and Ryou were not properly built up to justify so much emotion/expectations into any kind of relationship between them (apart from the business connection).

I easily empathize with characters and their counterpart in movies - even the slightest connection do touch me, but this movie lacks the connections and end up overloading the main character.

Also, Ryou revealing his past related to his mother to Shizuka, does not justify the need of Shizuka revealing about Ryou's mother's way of life... if the cause of his mother death was related to her 'job' then yes Shizuka's explanation would have made sense, but it lost the meaning altogether ... I mean, there you have someone that is still in pain about a loss and you just go there and poke the wound? ...