Sabu

Takashi Miike has directed some very, very unusual films. Some have been hilariously strange and off-beat (HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS), just plain odd (BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA) or super violent (AUDITION and ICHI THE KILLER). As for me, I have loved some of his films but also found his violent films so sick and graphic I couldn't stand them--it's all a matter of taste--I just don't want graphic violence in my films. But, I wasn't at all prepared for SABU, as it seemed nothing like the other Miike films I'd seen. I was worried it would be too violent (it wasn't unnecessarily so) and hoped it would be weird and unconventional (it wasn't). Overall, it was a finely crafted but extremely conventional film about a man who is unjustly sent to debtors prison and becomes violent in order to cope with it--and praying for revenge when he one day is released. As far as this plot goes, it has some very interesting elements and twists (particularly towards the end), but the film also is a bit dull in spots and I was tempted several times to stop watching. While I am glad I stuck with it because there was enough payoff at the end to justify seeing it, it wasn't a particularly interesting film or anything that seemed out of the ordinary. I'm sure Miike's rabid fans out there would thoroughly disagree, but I think the ordinary viewer could take or leave this film.

First things first, this isn't a Samurai movie as it is sometimes advertised. It's a period film set in the time of the Samurai, but the main characters are just normal folk. I might also mention that despite the film being named after the character Sabu, it spends almost the whole time focussed on his friend Eiji (played by Tatsuya Fujiwara of Battle Royale fame).

It's hard to recognise the influence of director Takashi Miike here, as it features none of his usual over-the-top madness. However, it's another film that shows the director to be capable of far more than just shocking the audience with violence.

However, I still reckon it amongst the weakest of 20 or so Miike films that I've seen. As a drama it's quite well made, but I was left largely unmoved by it. I wasn't quite sure what message or feeling I was meant to take away, and after 2 hours I felt that I still didn't really know or understand the characters that well. It felt like we were just getting part of a larger story, and what we glimpsed wasn't enough to fully appreciate it.

That said, it was nice to see Tatsuya Fujiwara in a non-Battle Royale setting, though the film indicates as one might expect from one so young that his acting really isn't that great without Kinji Fukasaku and a strong screenplay behind him.

Overall, I feel that it's a film I could have appreciated more if I'd known up front what it was about (no Samurai!), but that I don't expect to watch again any time soon to find out.

I find myself comparing this to the French miniseries, "Compte de Monte Cristo", and to "Manon des Sources - Jean de la Florette". Sabu, too was apparently produced for TV, and I admire the audience and director/producer/art director that permitted such a work to come to light. This is not a work produced for the lowest common denominator.

The photography - the palette - the attention to small historical details, to nature, to emotions is fine.

But I think of structure - ideas like exposition, rising action, peripetie, moment of final tension, denouement - and of Compte and Manon - and the French works seem more selective in their focus, as though examining a small group (the key parties to the action) under a microscope. Each fully. The good and the bad have their reasons, their views of life. Rising moments of tension are interspersed or silhouetted against pastoral moments or even comic or rustic relief.

Here, in Sabu, I sometimes felt the scenery stole the show - i.e., that the action or development stalled. I sometimes felt the focus was confused - that more attention should have been given to Osue, Sabu, Onobu - and certainly more to Roku and to the old fellow prisoner who is so supportive.

But I don't suggest Sabu fails to expose and delicately develop a host of characters - it does, but leaves us wanting more. And I sense a certain ideal "ratio" between the length of the film and the height and depth of its emotional swings has been violated. In Sabu, I find the rise and development of such moments too lengthy, or too understated to support the film's overall length in full dramatic fashion.

Still, there are wonderfully moving and touching moments, people we wish we could know better, even a growing understanding of a society and a time in history. Characters who appear cruel become sensitive and supportive, characters who appear innocent have their failings, and there's nature and fate and a possibility of achieving true happiness through resignation. Its world may be more accommodating than that of Manon.

I highly recommend this film. Despite weaknesses it's thought provoking. It's beautiful. It's humanist. I'll rate it a 9.

Coming from the prolifically warped Takashi Miike, this is a surprisingly straightforward psychological period drama. As witnessed and protected by his self-effacing best friend Sabu (Satoshi Tsumabuki), pretty boy Eiji (Tatsuya Fujiwara) receives proper comeuppance for his arrogance through being wrongfully accused and punished for a crime inspired by his allure. The bootleg U.S. DVD by Ctenosaur is a work of love. Highly recommended.

Sabu is a simple, straight-forward friendship/love story with few surprises, very unlike Miike's more popular movies (which have been recognized as some of the most disturbingly shocking and violent films of all time). But what makes this movie better than just an average movie of the week is the direction. The opening 10 minutes are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. And throughout, Miike shows everyone that he can handle a story without sex or ultra-violence with one of the greatest styles the cinema has known. The movie itself is worth seeing at least once, but the directing gives it replay value several times over.