FANTASIA Report: ADRIFT IN TOKYO Review

[Yes, it's just as good on second viewing. Yum.]

With only five feature films to his credit thus far it seems a bit premature to say that Adrift In Tokyo is writer-director Miki Satoshi’s masterpiece. He’s got a lot more film left in him, after all, and who knows what he’ll come up with next. But, by god, he’s got a hard road ahead of him if he expects to top this one, a film that any director of any nationality would be proud to have on the resume.

Joe Odagiri stars as Takemura, a shambolic and wild haired loser drifting aimlessly though his life. He’s in his eighth year of college, has no firm plans on what he wants to do with his life and no family or friends to speak of. He also has an eight hundred thousand yen debt that he cannot repay, a fact he is rudely reminded of when a burly debt collector burst into his apartment, puts him in a choke hold, shoves a dirty sock into his mouth and lays down a seventy two hour deadline before leaving.

Things are not good for Takemura. No, things are actually looking quite bleak but it turns out that the debt collector is an unusual sort himself and two days later he proposes a way for Takemura to get out of the mess he is in. If the student will simply accompany the debt collector on a walk through the city f Tokyo, from the outlying area they are currently in through to the city center, he will be paid one million yen and presto! The debt is gone. Takemura is leery of the offer – it simply sounds too good to be true – but what choice does he have?

And so we embark on a slow motion road movie, a stroll through Tokyo – easily as much a character in the film as are either of the human leads – with two odd and isolated men. We learn early on that the debt collector – named Fukuhara and played by Miura Tomokazu – has killed his wife and this walk is a sort of farewell tour through the places that hold special meaning and memories for him before turning himself in. Takemura, for his part, was abandoned as a child and has no family to speak of, no meaningful connections at all, and can’t help but find himself being drawn to the guilt stricken older man.

Miki’s film is built around an achingly simple premise – nothing more than two men walking and talking and coming across a variety of odd characters and situations along the way – but it succeeds so incredibly well based on the strength of its two lead performances and Miki’s seemingly new found understanding that he doesn’t need to fill up all of the spaces of his film with extra stuff to hold people’s attention. Yes, there are a lot of gags scattered through the film – good ones, too – but what makes Adrift In Tokyo truly special is the slow reveal of its two central characters, the slowly blossoming trust between them, the understanding that both are needy and fragile in their own ways and - most importantly – the fact that Miki earns every bit of the ultimate emotional payoff at the end by simply allowing his characters and actors ample space to breath.

Adrift In Tokyo takes on many of the characteristics of its plot. It is a meandering, quirky and surprisingly beautiful piece of work that perfectly balances humor and emotion. Flawlessly written and shot by a man who seems to have figured out exactly what sort of film maker he is and where his strengths lie, Adrift In Tokyo makes it very clear that Miki Satoshi is no longer simply that goofy TV director mucking about on the big screen but that he has become one of the strongest voices in Japanese film. Yes, it’s really that good.