Good concept, poorly executed.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Blistering performances.

The beginning had a strong opening where I was actually engaged/intrigued, but after the main character makes a "run for it", that is when everything just falls apart, literally (story/pacing), and just becomes a plain, super dragged out, extremely silly and dumb, where things just conveniently happen just for the sake of happening (old man in the hospital... come on now), boring adventure. I can suspend some disbelief, but they end up taking things way too far. It's like the opening starts out really accelerating with a big bang that grabs your interest -- and you'd think it would be more intense after he makes a run for it, but instead the whole film after that just never picks up the pace/just slows way way down/drags and decides to take a huge cartoon world/scenario approach instead. It's very obvious things just unnaturally, forcefully occur just for the sake of the director/writer to connect it with another ridiculous silly plot (Oh, those memories of making out in an abandoned crummy old Corolla... oh! let's bring back that nostalgia and have a wife, who knows absolutely nothing about cars, hook up the battery herself to come to the rescue... Just silly.)The writer of this film clearly is a Beatles fan and believes in the JFK assassination conspiracy/media manipulations. The plot is about the Prime Minister of Japan being assassinated instead, and it ends up being framed on the main character, where he then makes a run for it. The film is a satire of "Lee Harvey Oswald" being framed for JFK, or "Bin Laden" for 9/11, where the media just needs an "image"/scapegoat. The idea is very interesting and I was really engaged and excited at first where it was going to end up, but the rest of the film is just absolute torture and disappointing. Although I cry easily when watching movies, I could not even cry once or find anything touching for this film; I can tell the director tried to throw in all these cheesy touchy moments, but it's so forcefully done, it just makes you roll your eyes and cringe instead. (Seriously... fireworks coming out of manhole covers??? Come on now... That had to be the stupidest thing ever. The wife is some sort of superwoman.) The problem with this film is that it doesn't know whether to be completely serious or end up going so over-the-top ridiculousness turning into an anime world. When people start behaving like they do in anime and really over-the-top silly things start to happen, it actually backfires on the realism/suspense - it really takes the audience out of it. It seriously loses its suspense because you just can't take it seriously anymore. It needs consistency, which this film doesn't have. What made movies like "The Fugitive" suspenseful and exciting is because as over-the-top Hollywood action it may have had, it was still grounded. The ending "twist" is also not that clever/not worth all that time for that pay off. I felt like the movie was more like 3 hours long; it just really felt that dragged on.The positive reviews are giving this movie way too much credit than it really is. Overall, the plot had potential, but the film decided to take a cartoon silly approach with an extremely cheesy flashback "going back home" story.

Aoyagi (Masato Sakai) is mistaken for a murderer and on the run from the cops. At first glance one would think it to be a simple suspense film, but that's not the case. Each character has a deeper motive. Carefree, open-hearted, soft-spoken, each character seems to have some sort of reliance and trust in Aoyagi.A married couple with child get into an elevator, standing alongside a suspicious hooded man. The elevator descends, and a long take follows them as they walk through the department store. Suddenly, the child disappears. In this moment the film has us nervously thinking, "Something bad must have happened."With this powerful moment I'd recommend the film. Every scene in the film feels like a pure cinematic experience: when the company owner says to Aoyagi, "i know You aren't the criminal;" when we cut to the scenery outside the car in motion; when the child of the wanted criminal dies. Even normal scenes were certainly shot with meaning. The cooperation of Sendai City during the filming has a positive effect on the movie's quality. Extras who appear in the film for just a few seconds stand with consideration for their own significance, in turn blessed by a splendid film. As soundly escapist entertainment, it's a shame the film hasn't been screened overseas since its debut in 2010. This kind of amusing film is an example for what Japanese cinema is all about.

From the trailer, this looks like an action thriller with good acting. Well, I made it 50 minutes because of the acting, but it was abundantly clear the trailer was misleading. This is actually an art house movie that, according to some reviews, is an "uplifting" and witty commentary on Japanese society.Characters don't act like real people, and things are deliberately structured to meander and not make sense. What the movie seems to think is funny is either trite, lame, or, most annoyingly, disturbing, and there are no reassurances something horrific isn't about to happen any second. There seems to be a gleeful nonchalance at work keeping you from becoming invested in anything, and I had to check some reviews to see if it was worth sitting through another 90 minutes to finish it. After seeing a string of glowing reviews along these lines, I knew it wasn't: "Most movies suffer from the need to explain everything. They do not leave any room for imagination. They are designed for people who love to avoid thinking and just want to consume what's put in front of them. The celluloid guinea pigs.Movies that come close to what art's supposed to be involve the viewer, inspire contemplation and leave many things unexplained simply because art doesn't dictate perspectives, it opens perspectives. A great movie is a movie that allows us to see ourselves in it." This is not a thriller to pop in for some excitement and get lost in; some say it gets better towards the end, but you'd better have a *lot* of patience to find out. See the twitch and meniscus reviews I added in the external reviews section for a couple of more realistic appraisals.This is the kind of movie that loses the viewer's trust, much like the 'prankster' who says "Oh, your wife called earlier and said she was on the way here, but it sounded like she got into an accident and the line went dead" and then laughs at your horrified expression and chides your for not 'getting' their joke, and director Yoshihiro Nakamura is now on my 'avoid' list.

I have seen this movie at the Berlinale Film Festival in Germany. For a European, it is always interesting and challenging to learn about Japan. The Japanese culture is so different from the European, so you generally cannot take anything for granted. In particular, this holds even more so for this movie.It is about playing with the expectations and breaking assumptions, of any audience, constantly, no matter whether it is Japanese or European.Some examples: Can you expect to start up a rusty old car sitting in a swamp for years just by inserting a new battery? Can you imagine a serial killer that is actually a nice boyish guy which acts as a guardian angel sometimes? Would a mother leave her 3-year old child alone for a while to help some fugitive, to secretly install fireworks in the storm drains? And so on.That is all what I want to say about the plot. The summary line and these examples must suffice. The absence of any certainties (regarding plot twists as well as underlying assumptions) makes it also bit confusing, but in a good way, though. Still, I think this complexity puzzled many spectators, and this is why there weren't many questions to the producers and the main actor after the festival screening.Oftentimes in the movie something happens that seems to be completely predetermined, other events happen in a completely unpredictable and even absurd manner. The fact the movie walks on the fine line between determinism and haphazard, makes it also very profound. It is also a statement about the Japanese society and its people - and the many transformations it underwent in the last, say, 100 years. In this movie, most people have a positive attitude towards live and outcomes of their actions, even if bad things happen... murder, betrayal, treachery. Don't take it all too seriously.I realize that I am trying to unravel the this movie. I have never seen anything like that before. Enjoyed it very much.