Weekly visions - week 44, 2025

Fish Story/フィッシュストーリー, directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura, written by Tamio Hayashi, based on the novel by Kotaro Isaka, Japan, 2009 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I watched this film for the first time fifteen years ago, and my recollection of it was focused on the cause-and-effect relation between the different segments depicted: from a commercially unsuccessful band writing a song to a global threat event. Rewatching it, I discovered quite a different movie, one where those links are almost irrelevant, while the important element is the human creative act - whether it’s writing a piece of music, or making up a spooky story (I love how one of the parts plays with J-Horror tropes).

Battle Royale/バトル・ロワイアル, directed by Kinji Fukasaku, written by Kenta Fukasaku, based on the novel by Koushun Takami, Japan, 2000 - ⭐⭐⭐½

Another movie I watched so long ago, with a few elements retained in my memory: the overall story (i.e. Hunger Games years before Suzanne Collins’ books), the presence of Chiaki Kuriyama, and one early scene involving Takeshi Kitano and a knife.
It’s definitely more teen than I remembered - with a lot of focus on the high schoolers’ respective crushes - and there are so many characters that I found difficult following who was who from one scene to another.
Overall, it was a very enjoyable rewatch.

The Grudge 2, directed by Takashi Shimizu, written by Stephen Susco, US, 2006 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I was so happy when I noticed that there was still a whole Shimizu-directed Ju-On film that I had not watched yet.
Like the first The Grudge, this one remixes some of the scary scenes seen in the original films, but in a substantially new story - more focussed on being a sequel than the Ju-Ons were.
So, there’s a lot that’s familiar and enjoyable. But part of the story takes place in the US, and that’s where the film diverges the most from the source material - and also where it gets uninteresting.

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes/ドロステのはてで僕ら, directed by Junta Yamaguchi, written by Makoto Ueda, Japan, 2020 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The third of my rewatches for the week came just eighteen months since the fist watch, so my recollection of the story - a few characters discovering a computer screen that sees two minutes in the future - was still quite good. The film is still enjoyable, both for the time-defying dynamics - which, I have to admit, I struggle to keep up with more than with Primer -, and its almost home-made quality.
So, four stars are maybe a stretch, but its good-heartedness leaves me no choice.

River/リバー、流れないでよ, directed by Junta Yamaguchi, written by Makoto Ueda, Japan, 2023 - ⭐⭐⭐½

Of course I was then curious to find whether the team behind Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes had ever made any other film, and I found River, that not only sees the return of the writer, the director and most of the cast of that movie, but also of our old friend, the two-minute span.
This time, 120 seconds are the duration of a time loop that, mysteriously, affects a small hotel in a beautiful village in the Kyoto region.
It gets a bit repetitive at some point (struggling to get to an 86-minute runtime), but, again, it won me over with its simplicity and the sweetness of Riko Fujitani’s main character.

A House of Dynamite, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, written by Noah Oppenheim, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½

Such a strange film. The US immediate response to a surprise missile attack is very tense and nail-biting… the first time it is depicted. Then the same time period is shown again, this time from the point of view of a different set of characters. Then, once again, following what is probably the most important person in the story. But while I understand these second and third part should make us focus on the human side of the story, they lose strength and only sustain on the promise of a resolution… which may be quite disappointing.