Rina Sawayama releases film noir 'Bad Friend' music video

Currently the reigning queen of irresistible hooks and cinematic music videos, Rina Sawayama has shared the final video cut for 'Bad Friend', the last she shot before quarantine.

'Bad Friend' takes on a film noir quality and sees Sawayama playing a drunken old man. She's moonlit as different characters in her videos before, including a "beauty water" mogul and a swamp monster, but none so subversive as this. She also tends to deliver videos in an explosion of colour, her orange streaks leading the way. By contrast, 'Bad Friend' is shot entirely in black and white.

“The song is about the heartbreak of losing a friendship and realising that you were the cause of the breakdown," Sawayama explained in a statement. "When you hear the song this is not the video you imagine – but that’s exactly what we wanted. The music video is a reimagining of the themes in ‘Bad Friend’; of longing, loss, self hate and ultimately self love.

“Choosing a slow, film noir style focuses all the attention on performance and acting, which was definitely very daunting but I had so much fun making a video that is so wildly different from my previous videos.”

Sawayama's eponymous debut album earned a whopping nine stars from Hot Press' Tanis Smither, who called "it intensely personal, a chronicle of her struggles as an immigrant, her complex family history, and growing up with depression".