Adrift in Tokyo (2007)

Just watched a very good movie called TENTEN~Adrift In Tokyo, A comedic story about a Loan Shark Collector who offers one of his marks a million yen to pay off his debts if he'll accompany him on a walk of indeterminate time: "Could be days or even a month", he flatly states. Without much choice, the mark accepts the job, and over the course of days, the two men form a special bond as they experience life on the road together.

The Loan collector is played with witty delight by Miura Tomokazu, whose character of Fukuhara is a life-loving person, and his constant chattering about this and that is reminiscent of Charles Grodin in Midnight Run or Kazama Morio in Instant Numa! The hapless debt-ridden man he eventually employs as his road companion of sorts is played with glum moroseness by Odagiri Joe, here rocking the frizziest hairdo ever seen on an asian man! As Takemura, he's a young man who's always felt like luck hasn't been on his side. Abandoned by his parents at the age of 5, he's always looked at life as a series of let downs and broken promises. But through the course of their walk, he begins to see in Fukuhara the father figure he's longed for all his life.

Don't Worry though, the Movie isn't as dark as all that, the story is played very lightly, and, like I mentioned earlier, is pretty much a comedy however you look at it. But the twist and turns the two men go through, the fun and interesting eateries, the fights and the late night-talks all add up to a very sincere and thought- provoking film.

At one point Fukuhara takes Takemura to meet a lady-friend of his named Makiko (played by the ever-stoic Koizumi Kyoko) where they can stay for a few days and it's here that Takemura meets her niece Fufumi, played by the excitably genki Yoshitaka Yuriko: SUCH a cutie, Special mention MUST be made of HER! From the moment she enters, she's stealing the scenes, going off portraying her patented "Woman/Child" girly-girl, the kind that is sooooo cute and ditsy as to border on Mental incapacitation! With her one-of-a-kind high-pitched and scratchy voice, can ANYONE do this better than her? LOL!

Read More

Half-baked but the baked part is pretty good

The film is at its best when threading unusual vignettes through various Tokyo landscapes, such as when we follow an unstoppable multicolored guitarist, or when a slightly ridiculous cosplayer suddenly jumps from a rooftop, inexplicably surviving only to flee on his moped just as white as his costume.
These scenes, though fun enough and appropriately tied in with the main plot, just don't mesh sufficiently well. Two films seem to be fighting for the right to exist here, a limp absurdist comedy and a hastily spliced family drama.
The patchwork approach is viable, but the absurd intensity should have been pushed far beyond what is presented, and the dialogue crafted with greater flair.
The interludes with the dead wife's colleagues are entirely dispensable.

That said, nothing is mediocre, the actors play well, Tokyo is beautiful, and the group scenes in the final act are touching.

Read More