FFS Day 4: 天の茶助
I've been putting off writing about this film, because I don't really know what to say about it.
The English title is Chasuke's Journey, and it's a film by the Japanese cyberpunk director SABU.
The description of this film on the FFS website describes it as a "must-see for any science fiction fan", but I don't understand that connection at all. This is more fantasy/magic realism than sci-fi, in my opinion.
The story goes like this: The main character, Chasuke, serves tea to angels in heaven. These angels spend all day slaving away writing the scripts of the human lives down on earth. Chasuke has become quite fond of the main character in one of these stories, and goes down to earth to rescue this girl when he finds out she's destined to get killed in a hit and run. The film goes from odd fantasy to absurd comedy / thriller adventure once Chasuke is down on earth.
While the film has its moments, it never really grabbed me. Matsuyama Kenichi is charming as hell as Chasuke, though, but I think his performance in Postman Blues (another SABU film, by the way) is better.
In fact, the theme and build of Chasuke's Journey is similar to Postman Blues in a lot of different ways, and I think that the latter comes out the winner in all scenarios. The endings are almost identical too, which .. is a little interesting.
Who knows, maybe I would have enjoyed this more if I hadn't brushed up on my SABU knowledge by watching Postman Blues the night before going to this screening. Even so, this remains my least favourite film from this year's FFS.
Trailer!
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