Star Bulletin
Massage girl and geeky
client find unlikely romance
By John Berger
A mysterious woman takes a job in a Hollywood massage parlor -- is she seeking refuge, revenge or some combination of both? But, to be honest, by the end of "Soap Girl," it doesn't really matter due to the fine performances of Luciano Saber and Kerry Liu.
Liu plays Maya, the neophyte parlor worker, and Saber is Harry, a preternaturally geeky writer who meets Maya as a customer after his friend and agent discovers that the 30-something Harry is still a virgin. Naturally -- for this film anyway -- they hit it off, and a romance blossoms even though Maya is dealing with the sexual demands of other customers and Harry is struggling to finish writing a technical manual when he would much rather be writing poetry about Maya.
The love story is so engaging that viewers are likely to suspend their knowledge of life and love in the real-life "floating world" and hope that the unlikely couple will beat the odds against them. While some of the secondary story lines add depth, others seemed to have been placed primarily to showcase the supporting cast, which include Gina Hiraizumi as the gorgeous and "exotic" Asia and Tomiko Lee, who does a perfect turn as the parlor's mama-san.
But it's Saber and Liu that make "Soap Girl" more appealing as a love story than a message or slice-of-life movie.
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