While not a terrible movie, Sumida & Keiko's dystopia where- in after killing his father who beats him up in drunken rages, Sumida embarks on a campaign of violence against evil-doers demonstrates a mismanagement of the time spent on different aspects of the plot.
What really occurs, is that the violence between father and son is a surrogate for violence against women done by what are essentially psychotic individuals. This is easily seen in the completely superfluous knife fight over a transit-seat being offered to a pregnant woman. Although the unthinkable does not happen, the tension is sufficient to recognize that the director is "hung-up" on portraying unspeakable violence against the women of the movie.
Nonetheless, it is not an overly bloody movie, but the subtitles are not sufficient to provide a proper understanding of the scene where the partially-clad woman with Japanese insults written on her body (in Japanese) -- hings such as "pig" and "bitch", who says "I do this by choice". In other words, she invites being called a "pig" as part of being the female in her relationship, where she literally walks around with a chain on her ankle.
I would not go so far as to call the movie unwatchable in its treatment of women, although there were some loud "boos" at the screening I went to, eventually there was some applause at the end. To appreciate the movie, one must come to the understanding that each and every character in the movie is not just involved in a movie about angst, but is quite literally insane, or in the language of psychiatrists, "in a deep psychosis".
I would not go so far as to call the director psychotic, but rather, lacking the plot time-management skill to convince us otherwise.
Unless you're a psychiatrist in a super-max prison, this movie is not escapism, and the assertion that people in Japan need a cynical criticism of the "Let's go Japan!" rebuilding mantra in their media, that the director presents, can quite safely be tossed in the trash.
My advice to the director: Move to Osaka.
What really occurs, is that the violence between father and son is a surrogate for violence against women done by what are essentially psychotic individuals. This is easily seen in the completely superfluous knife fight over a transit-seat being offered to a pregnant woman. Although the unthinkable does not happen, the tension is sufficient to recognize that the director is "hung-up" on portraying unspeakable violence against the women of the movie.
Nonetheless, it is not an overly bloody movie, but the subtitles are not sufficient to provide a proper understanding of the scene where the partially-clad woman with Japanese insults written on her body (in Japanese) -- hings such as "pig" and "bitch", who says "I do this by choice". In other words, she invites being called a "pig" as part of being the female in her relationship, where she literally walks around with a chain on her ankle.
I would not go so far as to call the movie unwatchable in its treatment of women, although there were some loud "boos" at the screening I went to, eventually there was some applause at the end. To appreciate the movie, one must come to the understanding that each and every character in the movie is not just involved in a movie about angst, but is quite literally insane, or in the language of psychiatrists, "in a deep psychosis".
I would not go so far as to call the director psychotic, but rather, lacking the plot time-management skill to convince us otherwise.
Unless you're a psychiatrist in a super-max prison, this movie is not escapism, and the assertion that people in Japan need a cynical criticism of the "Let's go Japan!" rebuilding mantra in their media, that the director presents, can quite safely be tossed in the trash.
My advice to the director: Move to Osaka.