Snakes and Earrings

Lui is a young woman in Tokyo who meets Ama, a troubled punk, at a nightclub. She is drawn in by his split tongue, and her fascination turns into a fixation on body modification. Ama introduces her to Shiba, a heavily tattooed piercer and tattoo artist, who pierces her tongue. Lui becomes involved with both men at once, and her desires keep expanding as she decides she also wants a tattoo.

This Japanese crime romance was released in 2008 and runs 123 minutes. It was directed by Yukio Ninagawa, who also wrote the screenplay with Takuya Miyawaki, and it was produced by Haruo Umekawa, Yasuhiro Hasegawa and Yasuhide Uno. Yuriko Yoshitaka plays Lui, Kengo Kora plays Ama and Arata Iura plays Shiba, with supporting roles from Yû Abiru, Sonim and Ennosuke Ichikawa. The film belongs to a period of Ninagawa's career when the stage director was working in cinema; the facts list it as one of his films, without further detail on its position among them. Its rating on TMDB is 6.1 out of 10 based on 41 votes, a modest score from a small number of viewers rather than a broad consensus.