Remember a week ago when I reviewed Tampopo and found it ever so slightly bizarre? Well worry not, I’ve found an even more insane film in Survive Style 5+ which features a whole host of famous actors including Tadanobu Asano (Zatoichi) and the legendary Vinnie Jones. That’s right, Vinnie’s going to Japan.

The story follows a man killing his wife, before returning home and finding she’s sitting at the table waiting for him. Every following time he manages to off her she comes back stronger and angrier, each time trying to off him before he can off her.  Woven into this tale is the story follows the tale of a family who get hold of some tickets to see a famous hypnotist (above, right) as he performs his amazing 1 Million Yen challenge - if the audience member chosen is not affected by his skills, he wins a million Yen. Sadly the father of the family succumbs to the magic and begins to believe he is a chicken. Sadly, before he can be changed back, Assassin Vinnie Jones pops up with his bumbling translator and demands to know “What is your purpose in life?” before killing the hypnotist, thus leaving the father a chicken for the rest of his life.

However, as with all these bizarre films, there’s always plenty of other storylines to follow. Yuko is a woman working for an advertising company who continually throught the film comes up with rediculous ideas for adverts. We the audience are then shown these ideas (through a curtain with “What the advert Yuko is thinking about” written on it) before cutting back to the story and Yuko giggling.

This film is great if you’re prepared to sit back and accept you’re not going to understand it. The subtitles are well written and the entire cast gives a convincing performance (even chicken man). Well worth a watch for fans of Pulp Fiction.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 5:41 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.