An Excellent Film About Shoko Suzuki

This is a documentary/concert film, featuring interviews with Shoko and other artists she's worked with over the years -- including Yumi Yoshimura of Puffy, Masahiro Naoe of Carnation, and Yuji Katsui of Rovo. These interviews are presented in-between concert performances, along with vintage footage of Shoko from various points throughout her career.

The concert footage is from 2004, right around the time Shoko released her "Blonde/Passion" single. The concert band is Yuji Katsui on electric violin, Koudou Sakamoto on cello, and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki on drums -- all three played on Shoko's 2006 self-titled album, which was partially recorded around this time.

The first half of the concert set is with the band, and features some truly epic performances, capped off by a nine-plus minute freak-out performance of "Izon to Shihai." Afterwards Shoko performs solo, playing lighter, less rocking songs on piano and acoustic guitar.

The only drawback to this otherwise excellent disc is that it was listed as an all-region disc (even on the packaging), yet it is not: it is most definitely Region 2 encoded.