"Vibrator," by the renown Japanese director Ryuichi Hiroki, is a film that starts pretty much like the Japanese Last-Tango-in-Paris-on-the-road. But it doesn't end that way.

It starts as the story of Rei Hayakawaa (played by Shinobu Terajima), a 31 year old neurotic woman who is suffering from alienation and an inability to establish warm and genuine contacts with others. She wants to touch people yet she is afraid that it may lead to a physical altercation, assault and perhaps worse.

While shopping for a bottle of wine late one night at a convenience store, she meets Takatoshi (played by Nao Omori), a bleach-blond truck driver with ear rings who responds openly to her covert flirting. prod

When he leaves the store she follows him in the parking lot to his truck. It's snowing and both are ready for some sex, adventure, and perhaps more. That's the kind of Plan A that is rapidly replaced by an unexpected Plan B. And without that shift, you wouldn't have a quality movie anyways but only a third-rate soft porn video-musical.

They park the four-ton tractor trailer on a side road and have sex inside the cabin until morning. Early next day they take off together, to deliver Takatoshi's merchandise to far away destinations.

Throughout the movie, Rei wavers between sex and intimacy. The more she gets to know Takatoshi's checkered past the closer she feels to him for at least he seems to be a genuine person not hiding anything and on top, treats her kindly despite his alleged past experience with a "stalker" girl.