User Reviews

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad movie. It's just that it's not a very good movie either. The director's main intent it seems is to keep the audience guessing what "Kimura" (the businessman that goes missing in a plot that involves detectives, the yakuza, the police, and seedy detectives) is up to. In the mix of plot twists and attempts to follow the characters involved in the separate plot line, the characters get a little watered down and so does the story. The director has tried to do too much and focused to much energy on keeping the audience guessing. When the climax hits, it is very surprising but also anti-climatic. The message of the film is also geared for Asian audiences where the loner anti-hero is considered a bad guy and deserves to be punished. A European or American film would have this character viewed in a more positive light and eliminated the preachy "all rebels and loners are losers" speech at the films climax. With the subject matter you might think this film is a crime drama or something of this ilk but no, it is played as straight comedy. A film with a strange pace, stilted world view and mostly unfunny comedy. It is by no means terrible. However, it would be one of my last choices in the foreign rental section of the video store.