The acclaimed director of Love Letter and April Story, Shunji Iwai's All About Lily Chou Chou is told through the eyes of Yuichi, a teenage boy in love with pop music and pop stars. Particularly beholden to Yuichi is the ethereal star Lily Chou Chou, the subject of her own website where a loyal coterie of 'Lilyphiles' trade gossip, information and speculation. Yuichi takes increasing solace in her fictional world, gradually using it as a weapon with which to fight his crippling shyness and the harsh realities of the outside world.
Conceived after Iwai attended a Hong Kong concert by Canto-pop diva Faye Wong (the star of Chungking Express), All About Lily Chou Chou began life first as a novel (as yet unfinished) before transforming into an interactive text maintained by Iwai on the website www.lily-holic.com. The interactive development of the project was crucial, enhancing the parallel narratives that are made horribly clear by the film's gripping conclusion.
Incorporating a hyperreal display of high-definition video and an extraordinary, at times rapturous use of music, All About Lily Chou Chou offers wonderfully executed sensory pleasure in abundance, more than this however it intelligently addresses prescient themes of violence, bullying and alienated adolescence. A genuine cinematic achievement and undoubtedly Iwai's finest work.