Sorobanzuku

A look into the future of Japanese movie-making was suggested by the arrival of this brash high-tech comedy, directed by one of the vanguard of young directors making noise on the international film circuit back in the mid-1980s. In keeping with Japan's headlong surge into the 21st century the film adopted a sleek, fantastic, artfully haywire style that was as much a celebration of speed and technology as it was a mockery of it. The result is pure kinetic filmmaking, highlighted by whip-crack editing, ostentatious colors, and an agile camera constantly thrusting its fish-eye lens straight into the stunned faces of the two protagonists: a pair of TV admen waging a private war against a corrupt rival agency. None of it has any connection to reality, but this kind of space-age slapstick follows its own peculiar logic. Who would think the same director could have been responsible for the subtle, minimalist 'Deaths in Tokimeki' (qv), made just one year previously?