Issei looks like one cool Japanese guy. He’s got it all, expensive clothes, the perfectly messed up hair, a boyish grin frozen in time, a curled up lip that makes smoking seem sexy, and a monthly income of 30,000 dollars. And more than a dozen girlfriends! How does he do it? He sells illusions and delusions, all wrapped inside the dark and moody walls of his Café Rakkyo where he and twenty of his stylish employees sell their love and attention to any woman lonely enough to fall for them and to pay. Issei is a modern day super Geisha Boy in Osaka, Japan. By the time this sly film illuminates what’s really going on, you realize how good he is. As the overpriced champagne flows and the neon lights flicker, we watch this train wreck of humanity disintegrating into the Great Happiness Space. First-time director, Jake Clennell directs with the exuberance and risk-taking necessary to make a film like this work. When it’s better than fiction, you know it’s cinema verité at its best.  RD