"A Japanese Movie That Isn't A Japanese Movie" - Survive Style 5+
Many of you may be fans of Japanese cinema, whether it be anime classics by Katsuhiro Otomo or Hayao Miyazaki, violent flicks by the likes of Takashi Miike or Takeshi Kitano, or decades old legendary movies directed by Akira Kurosawa or Yasujiro Ozu, there seems to be a movie for everyone.
But turn enough pages and you'll find yourself in the weird side of Japanese cinema, the side that basically feels like one long acid trip. Survive Style 5+ is another film that falls under this genre, a movie full of colors, stories, and beautiful wtf-ism. And just like any other obscure Japanese movie, the cast is stacked, starring Tadanobu Asano, Kyoko Koizumi, Ittoku Kishibe, Kanji Tsuda, Vinnie Jones, Sonny Chiba, and a plethora more of Japan's leading actors. What makes it even better is that the movie is split into 5 [+1] parts, and each of the big stars are basically only in one part, roughly 1/6 of the movie.
The directorial debut by famous Japanese commercial director duo Gen Sekiguchi and Taku Tada, Survive Style 5+ is a Japanese movie released in 2004, distributed by Tōhō. Both directors having backgrounds in making commercials, the movie has a feeling to it that no other film quite achieves. The unique use of colors, the transitions between scenes, the story, everything feels like a breath of fresh air, as well as a really bad trip.
The 5 +1 parts that the movie is split into seem to have no correlation whatsoever, but they start to intertwine, and continue on resulting in some unthinkable events. Each section of the movie has a title, listed below [translated from Japanese]
If these subtitles don't make you curious and scared to watch this movie, we don't know what else will.
