Dai yûkai

Everybody loves a kidnapping-gone-nuts. 100 years ago, O'Henry wrote the famous "Ransom of Red Chief", and since then we've had a zillion permutations of the story. The recipe is simple; take a bunch of kooky amateur crooks, have them kidnap a "victim" who is 100 times smarter than them, then sit back and watch the fun.

RAINBOW KIDS takes this formula and delivers a wild ride with a lot of intelligence. The setup is simple: 3 penny-ante hoods decide to kidnap the 82-year-old matriarch of one of the wealthiest families in Japan. When the woman learns that her captors are only asking for a paltry 50 million yen (a little over $300,000), she is terribly insulted. From there, things get crazy.

The plot is really cute with a lot of interesting twists, funny situations and even some good suspense. But the reason why I loved this film wasn't just the plot. This is a very "Japanese" story with themes of honor, loyalty, selflessness and enlightenment. If it were set in Los Angeles, USA it would never fly. Instead, set in the gorgeous mountains of southern Japan, it takes on almost a tranquil & spiritual vibe. The scenery alone is worth the price of admission, adding magnificence when needed. By the end of the film when you learn why certain things happened the way they did, you realize how the land played an important role.

I wouldn't call this a madcap comedy nor would I call it a crime drama. Perhaps it's best described by one of the characters who calls it a "fairytale". It can become confusing at times, especially if you're struggling to keep up with the subtitles, and the latter half requires a bit of math & business sense to fully understand what's going on. But the film does a great job of explaining things with a wonderful epilogue which ends the picture on a perfect note.

I definitely recommend this film and rank it among my favourite Japanese comedies. If you liked "Kikujiro" and "University of Laughs" you'll love "Rainbow Kids" (and conversely, if you like RK, you'll love Kiku & UofL). Don't pass up the opportunity to see any of these!

A trio of recently released criminals, The Rainbow Kids as they call themselves, devise a plan to kidnap an extremely wealthy matriarch for a paltry sum. When the kidnapee discovers how much the Rainbow Kids intend to ask for her release, she is insulted and demands that they increase the ransom dramatically. This poses a problem for her children, who believe that the ransom is far beyond their means. The matriarch then devises an elaborate plan to hold a television broadcast at a secret location, in order to instruct her children on how to raise the funds needed for the ransom.

The film is slow to start, but once it gets going, it becomes highly compelling. The story is bizarre, and in some parts confusingly complicated, but still engrossing and mildly suspenseful in parts. The jokes are well executed, often visual and usually ridiculous. The characters are all superbly developed; some are cliches but this works extremely well. Most of the performances are very strong, even the minor roles such as the helicopter pilot are made hilarious by sound comic acting. The film is comparatively well directed for a modern film, which is not surprising given that the director is a living fossil (born in 1923).

My only real criticism is that the film goes on twenty minutes too long. It has plenty of perfect opportunities to end, but instead it drags on by attempting to explain why the matriarch demanded the Rainbow Kids charge a higher ransom. The explanation was so complicated that I found it difficult to understand, and it seemed unnecessary anyway since the story remains ridiculous even with the explanation added on.

Nevertheless, this is a minor criticism of what is a wonderfully funny and entertaining comedy, which mercifully does not contain any sex, language or violence.