Sabaibaru famirî

"Survival Family" is a very memorable and unusual film. However, simply calling it a comedy is a mistake. While there are a few comedic moments, the overall tone is NOT funny and there is far more depth and heart to the movie than you'll find in a mere comedy.

The story begins in Tokyo. A very ordinary (for better or worse) are the focus of the movie...and their lives are turned upside down when all power, including battery power, instantly vanishes. Now, obtaining food, water and living their everyday lives is becoming impossible...and the family decides to head out to the country where the mother's parents live. But how to get there? Trains, cars and other conventional forms of transportation are useless...and they are forced to bicycle their way out of this hellish city. The film chronicles there very long, scary and incredibly dangerous trek.

The main thing I got out of this film was NOT comedy nor laughs. Instead, I really appreciated the way the filmmakers show us just how impossible most of our lives would be in this sort of situation...with a disintegration of social rules and mores. As a result, the story really makes you think....and most comedies are not concered with making us think...just laugh.

In addition to opening up the viewers' eyes, the film works well because of the lovely acting...and especially the writing and direction of Shinobu Yaguchi. He really did a marvelous job...and it left me wanting to see more of his movies. Well worth seeing...clever, heart-felt and, occasionally funny.

By the way, in order to understand the sorts of price gouging that occurs in the film, it helps to know the value of the yen. In US dollars, 100 yen are worth about $.89....making a bottle of bottled water, post-apocalypse, cost about $20 in the film.

SURVIVAL FAMILY, arriving in Chinese cinema this June, from the highly acclaimed Japanese director Shinobu Yaguchi (WATERBOYS 2001, SWING GIRLS 2004, WOOD JOB! 2014), idiosyncratically taps into the fecund ground of our epoch's ambiguous stance towards global digitalization, envisages a cockamamie premise when our world is struck by an unforeseen power-out, which causes all electronic apparatuses mysteriously out of whack, then a road trip ebulliently pans out about how one ordinary urban Tokyo family wrestling to survive under such circumstances.

The prologue expeditiously encapsulates the quotidian discord within this nuclear family, crammed in a tenement apartment, an office-clerk father (Kohinata), a housewife mother (Fukatsu), a brace of disgruntled high-school daughter-and-son (Izumisawa and Aoi), which constitute a garden-variety version of the universal generational gap. Little they know, the next day, electricity and its paraphernalia will be completely shorn out of their life, they are wrong-footed like the rest of the populace, after the holding-pattern period lapses with no progress (Yaguchi is pervertedly cagey in neither logical explication nor promulgating authoritative voice), although, the whole family has a rare star-contemplating night when alternative becomes scarce, they decide to visit their maternal grandfather who lives near the seaside for fear of the impending shortage of food and water.

Their ensuing bicycle trek rather exceeds their widest expectation (although their decision of catching a plane is too much a foregone conclusion to enact in the first place), occasionally they merge with migrating elements on the highway, but mishaps befall incessantly, including chancing upon another family, who are brilliantly au fait with surviving skills, only counterpoising their ham-fisted misery to a farcical extent. The mythos of resorting to an agrarian facility pays amusing dividends as they must work for a farmer after unwittingly slaughtering one of his wandering pigs, touching moment segues after they sinks their teeth into the grunt work, they choose to continue their journey.

In the third act, precarious situations gain on the family, from a torrential river to a pack of ferocious dogs, bereavement is tantalized, but Yaguchi opts for a mawkish coincidence to tone down its effect lest the tonal shift, after all, the story's appealing congeniality is what clicks with the audience, plus, on the strength of the quartet's strenuous effort (Kohinata basks in his unwonted leading role with cracking comic timing and downplayed exasperation), SURVIVAL FAMILY hits the mark by showing up an uplifting down-home parable through its arbitrary milieu, which one must hand it to Yaguchi for pulling it off this with tenacious sobriety, especially when a tangy self-involving ubiquity starts to tell.

Like many other reviewers, I expected this to be mediocre. But, don't let the simple (silly) title distract you. This movie is hilarious, with plenty of great twists, dramatic turns and character development of each family member. Few movies today realistically portray the challenges of dealing with teenagers, and this movie nails it, albeit Japanese-style. The simple theme of surviving without electricity is fantastic. Plus, there are subtle messages about the need to care for our environment! The family is challenged personally and physically, like a modern day Cast Away or Swiss Family Robinson.

This was unexpectedly good. I LOVED this movie. I always appreciate a movie that depicts family relationships and dynamics. This movie did this in the most beautiful and at times dramatic way. It leaves a very strong impression. Highly recommended. Made me think about humanity, family and what the most real/important things in life are.

So much good vibeable movie. Feel green to watch this movie. Feel life i survived with them.so much knowledgeable for me. Starting was genaral but when the power cut wow.. It stat its true from.the theme is so good.i like the moment. I wish i could back to those time.