Anyone even casually familiar with Japanese genre films (or anime or manga)knows that they seem to have a kind of national fetish with school uniforms and the young girls that wear them. Most of these films are content to simply wallow in this particular fetish, but some like "Bounce Ko-gals" look at the more serious repercussions for the real-life teenage objects of this fetish. This movie falls somewhere between exploitation and serious drama. On one hand, it's a serious story about a socially-maladjusted Japanese salary-man (he is not really "middle-aged' like the synopsis says, but kind of older young adult who still lives at home with his family) who becomes obsessed with a schoolgirl he sees riding the subway every morning. However, the "schoolgirl" here is played by Japanese adult video starlet Aoi Sorya and the movie certainly spends a lot more time than necessary looking up the skirts of her and her equally mature-looking friend. But Sorya does give a pretty good performance and is fairly believable as a younger character.
This movie certainly doesn't glamorize stalkers. The guy is quite unattractive and pitiful, and he resorts to increasingly desperate (and ultimately violent) measures to get close to the object of his affection. The movie takes an ironic, if pretty implausible, twist a little more than halfway through, and then takes yet another more surreal and ambiguous twist at the very end. There's some humor, which may or may not be intentional (it's kind of hard to tell), such as when the guy steals the girl's bicycle seat or dresses himself up in a schoolgirl outfit. It's certainly not very erotic aside from an occasional glimpses of Sorya's cute little butt, which you could obviously see a lot more of in her AV work. (By the way, I don't claim that dressing adult porn stars up in schoolgirl outfits is exactly healthy, but I don't think it will cause any otherwise normal people to run slobbering down to the local schoolyard either).
I'm not sure who to recommend this movie to. People expecting a serious drama like "Bounce Ko-gals" might be put off by the more exploitative elements and the fact that it's told from the POV of the unappealing male stalker. On the other hand, people who want to see these porn stars actually take off their uniforms might be put off by the depressing tone and relative dearth of this kind of exploitation. Nevertheless it is a kind interesting movie.
