SURVIVE STYLE 5+

Year: 2004
Director: Gen Sekiguchi
Screenwriter: Taku Tada

Main Cast:

Tadanobu Asano – Aman
Reika Hashimoto – Aman’s wife
Kyoko Koizumi – Yoko
Hiroshi Abe – Aoyama
Ittoku Kishibe – Tatsuya Kobayashi
Yumi Aso – Misa, Kobayashi’s wife
Kanji Tsuda – Tsuda
Yoshiyuki Morishita – Morishita
Jai West – J
Yoshiyoshi Yarakawa – Killer’s Translator
Vinnie Jones – Hired Killer
Sonny Chiba – Kasama

Hands down, this is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the last few years. It’s difficult to even begin to describe its vileness. I know I’m not supposed to write summaries, but, in order to be fair, this time, I have to. Understandably, very few people have seen this abominable piece of shit.

The story has five facets, represented by five sets of protagonists: 1 – Aman, who kills his “wife” over and over again, but she always comes back in a different costume. They live in an ultra colorful house, saturated with disconnectedly random objects. She cooks him loads of food, but then, for no apparent reason, they start fighting and she ends up dead. After he buries her, she comes back to haunt him. Apart from the cooking, which happens only once more, at Christmas night, this cycle is repeated several times. Why? There is no possible answer. Why do they love each other again in the end? Again, zero reasons. There is very little dialogue, and when there is, it’s meaningless.

2 – Aoyama, a showy, flashy hypnotist. He is a typically Japanese television host – noisy and unfunny. He gets killed by Vinnie Jones, who had been hired by a girl he had, not very successfully, fucked, 3 – Yoko, a copywriter who comes up with a few good ideas for commercials. The movie enacts some of them for us in the shape of short films, which, of course, are happening only in her imagination. One of them, about aspirins, she did tape and showed it to her employers; one especially, the president of the advertising company, played by Sonny Chiba. They hated it and I certainly agree with them. It’s supposed to be funny, but it’s just plain ridiculous.

4 – Kobayashi and his family, the only hint of something close to human the movie presents us. However, the father gets hypnotized by Aoyama, who convinces him he is a bird. But, as mentioned above, he is killed by Mr. Jones. Thing is, Aoyama dies before he takes Kobayashi out of his trance. So, he spends the rest of the film acting like a bird. His 8-year-old son is ok with that, because, according to him, it’s just a cool change. We have to accept our father just the way he is, even if he jumps off his roof into his lawn, because he thinks he can fly. His family sees that happening through the living room window. Huh… what an awful scene that was. It’s not even an original idea – “Birdy” (1984), with Nicolas Cage and Matthew Modine, did a lot better.

5 – The worst: three teenage burglars who steal nothing. They just like to hang around people’s houses, having the most inane conversations you can think of. Again, absolutely unfunny. Two of them are closeted homosexuals, but decide to be together by the end. One is handsome; the other is terribly ugly and inexplicably tanned. That’s it, there’s nothing else to it.
The ending is supposedly poetic, but I was so annoyed that I couldn’t appreciate it. Bottom line is: Yes, the movie’s got some style, but it doesn’t survive its own utter silliness. Everything about it is gratuitous and superficial. There’s not a speck of substance, no connection at all with something real. I couldn’t identify or sympathize with any character of this film. Survive Style 5+ didn’t make me think or feel anything; my brain was just a blank from beginning to end. The only thing I wondered was: “how worse is this movie going to get? Isn’t it enough?”

By the way, after having seen Vinnie Jones wearing nothing but shorts and flip-flops in a sauna, I will never respect him again.

Grade: U

Link at imdb.