Tenten

"In my 8th college year, buying 3-color toothpaste I thought could spare me from my rock bottom situation." Those are the first words of the film as spoken by Fumiya (Jô Odagiri) just before debt collector Fukuhara (Tomokazu Miura) bursts into his apartment, removing his shoes at the front door as is Japanese custom, and roughs him up. The next day the debt collector offers Fumiya an opportunity to erase his debt: walk with him around Tokyo. What we get is a road movie, a very funny road movie, where the unlikely duo walk instead of drive. There's eventual male bonding, marvelous footage of Tokyo, and a smörgåsbord of odd characters and situations along the way.

Writer/Director Satoshi Miki has a stable of comedic actors who work with him often and who fill out this film playing the side characters. They remind me of the North American group that came out of Second City Television we now associate with Christopher Guest movies. They share that sense of humor too, where each of the characters seem to exist in their own orbit but since they all do, they get along fine. Dialog is somewhere between non sequiturs and honest answers when you don't anticipate them. And it's all about timing and delivery. Funny people.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the hairstyles of the two main characters. Jô Odagiri, famous Average Joe Japanese actor, sports a Dylanesque-fro, while famous Big Bad Guy actor Tomokazu Miura's cut seems to suffer from some sort of mullet imbalance. They're an odd pair perfectly suited to this low-key oddball comedy.

A thrill for me is the appearance of Yuriko Yoshitaka as Fufumi, the niece of the debt collector's fake wife. She co-starred, at age seventeen, in one of my favorite films of all time, Noriko's Dinner Table, as the younger sister, Yuka. While that Sion Sono film was no where near a comedy, Yuriko Yoshitaka's character possessed a bit of the same surreal comportment that works for her in this film. She's tasked here with playing a loud, extremely happy, self-orientor who likes to put mayonnaise on everything, and pulls it off without being overly obnoxious. Your mileage may vary but I think she's got a bright future. She seems comfortable acting.

It was more than twenty years ago the first time we went out to Japan to see our son, Yokohama and Tokyo. I thought that probably, I could walk around in Yokohama but I wasn't sure about Tokyo. And than I found out that the subway was great but I good really walk around easily as well. So with Joe Odagiri and Tomokazu Miura in this film it was wonderful with them both walking around. We realise that Joe leads a lazy life and built up a lot of debt and Tomokazu was the loan shark. There is only a little story (maybe like a killing) and then they go walking across Tokyo to get to a Police Station (maybe). It is a splendid tale and it is rather funny or amusing or even rather charming. There are some very odd moments and certainly it makes we smile. There is an old lady and her bike not happy but has to go around them and then there is a car. There is another old lady at the end and the guys are trying to walk backwards so that they may get younger. She thinks it silly but she tries anyway. There is much eating with noodles, ramen and some curry that might not be so spicy but it is rather crazy with some mayonnaise. Both the actors are good and I find it was rather moving and unquestionably something very different.

It was just a simple walk in Tokyo. But somehow it was funny, quirky and touching. You never know who you will meet in your life. Some meetings, even though short, just bring magic to your life.

Adrift in Tokyo is a heart warming comic drama about luck, a common theme in Japanese cinema, but interesting nonetheless. The film's protagonist Takemura is a law student with a debt to pay off, a debt collector named Fukuhara who visits his house and threatens him, offers him a way out, all he has to do is walk the streets with him. The untrusting relationship changes as the two learn more about each other, it has the feel of a road movie, with the friendship developing between the two men, with the underlying theme of luck shaping their futures, Fukuhara lost his child and Takemura was abandoned by his parents as a child, they end up posing as Father and son and gradually Takemura realises his luck is changing. This sentimental and somewhat obvious male-bonding plot is held aloft by hilarious secondary characters, unlikely comic scenarios and the beautiful cinematography that captures the full range of Tokyo's landscape and atmosphere. Uplifting, thought provoking and at times very amusing.

Does it make sense to say that a movie is predictably unpredictable? And is that a bad thing?

This is one of those movies where for some reason two guys who don't know each other go on a journey, usually against the will of one or both. In this movie, a middle aged torpedo bribes a college kid to follow him around Tokyo. Fukuhara has decided to turn himself into the police, and wants to wander the streets of his town one last time before he goes to prison. He meets hapless college kid Fumiya when he's sent to collect some debt of his. Fukuhara offers to give Fumiya the money he sorely needs in exchange for company. This all happens early, and the majority of the movie is following their walkabout.

They walk through several parts of Tokyo while embarking on random quests born out of their conversations and random curiousness. They meet a bunch of characters on their way, and their journey is filled with weird and silly situations. They go on detours, try new food, get in a fight, and for a stretch they have to pretend to be father and son. There is a lot of humor to be found, but also a good heart, and by the end Fukuhara and Fumiya are much closer to each other than they even realize. The city itself supplies a lot of charm as they move through a few of its many wards, and you really get a sense of the diversity of such a huge metropolis.

The movie progresses like you'd expect an unlikely-buddy/journey movie to. You've probably seen the "first they don't know/like each other much and 'the other guy' has weird habits but hey they've found common ground and now they're friends" thing a dozen times, but as always with movies, it's all in the delivery. The laughs are frequent and come from the weirdest places, and the way the guys bond in this is deeper and more complex than your average (american) movie, which makes it more poignant.

Perhaps my love of silliness and randomness, and my limited knowledge of Japanese culture and filmmaking makes Tenten a funnier, more unpredictable experience to me, but I'd wager anyone who sees this will find something to enjoy.