Without Ending...
Sabu's surreality strikes twice.

Sorry about skipping out on my Monday promise yesterday to cover Comic-con or more J-cinema. Busy-ness has been picking up, and I got more stuff to do during the majority of the day. Gonna have even more stuff to take care of this weekend. It's funny how much I try to get through stuff to get back to doing nothing if I so choose. I don't aim for being lazy, but if I want to be then I want to be able to. See?

It seems though, that once this stuff picks up, it starts going into overdrive. Once upon a time, tolerances might've been higher, but do you find yourself heading for "God? Why me?" territory a lot quicker these days. Unfortunately, I'm no different.

Which brings me to the movie I watched this weekend. It developed a healthy, "Well, at least I'm not that guy" sensation in me.

Unlucky Monkey (1998, d. Sabu)

The Story: The first story follows a bank robber who accidently kills a woman in his escape from the job, and who is being driven insane by what he's done. The second plotline follows three down-and-out yakuza who accidently kill a mob boss who's taking over their former boss's operations. Throught the story, their lives continuously intertwine until the crazed climax.

The Review: As I mentioned in my review of Tenchu, it was sort of weirdly appropriate I should watch this film on the same day as they have similar themes. Well one theme that I wanted to focus on which I suppose you could call divine retribution. These guys don't get it easy, nor do they really deserve to.

I would call this movie effective, but not in a crowd pleasing manner, at least not for Western audiences. Typically we like to see good triumph, especially in redemption stories where the bad hero with the heart of gold finally changes his ways. I suppose it could be summed up as marked triumph over extreme adversity. Sometimes we will even root for the bad guys if they're our protagonists for the same reason: they overcame impossible odds.

Unlucky Monkey just doesn't work like that. It's got a very zen sort of justice.

Our bank robber turns out to be a good guy at heart. This is really developed through the bizarre lengths with which his overactive imagination tortures him with guilt, as well as a subplot involving his helping a housing community's efforts against the company that's polluting the river near their homes. However, he can't escape the mistake he made in killing the girl. Obviously he feels bad for what he's done, but he shouldn't have been running round wildly with a butcher's knife and he shouldn't have been robbing a bank (though he doesn't actually rob the bank which requires some explanation, but the point is that he was going to). Now when I say can't escape it, I mean that very literally. Despite his best efforts to get caught, killed, or commit suicide, nothing comes to take his guilt away.

Like I said, he's a good guy. I don't think people would like that he has to keep sufferint.

I liked it. It was fitting. Maybe a bit much in terms of no possible redemption, but nice to see someone not turn their life around in a couple of hours of screentime.

Likewise, our three yakuza aren't gonna make it either and you know it. That doesn't stop them from hanging on like rabid dogs. Their tenacity and simple strings of coincidence manage to do little more than prolong their lives. Watching it, the viewer should be able to pick up on that long before the ending despite whatever they might hope for these guys. The most telling scene occurs just before they are attacked by yet another hitman. One of the trio pipes up that he's proud of being yakuza, and what they're going through is what it's all about. It's about looking cool, flashing money, getting chicks, and throwing down some violence when necessary. The other two start cheering him on just before bullets start flying, and they run away scared like little girls. The point, to me, is that they chose this lifestyle, they embraced it, and now they must pay the price for being a part of it. Again, they're not as cold or ruthless as those hunting them, but they're a part of the world.

Now, luckily this isn't Abel Ferrara (The Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral). Abel's take on no-redemption stories is grim and dark, and dark and grim. Sabu on the other hand, keeps it funny. Even much of the violence is a weird series of slapstick pratfalls. Now that doesn't mean that it's light. I suppose it's more that he doesn't feel the need to deal in grim material and kick your @$$ with keeping dark at the same time. You're not going to walk away from it thinking of it as a light comedy, but you're not leaving having lost all faith in humanity, God, and your future.

Because of that it walks an unsteady line, and just makes it to the other side as far as I was concerned. For others, I'm not certain it's something they could enjoy as I keep stating. After all, there's plenty of things this movie treats as humorous or exaggerated that some folks would find anything but funny. Some I'd understand, other stuff is people needing to get over themselves.

I've liked what I've seen of Sabu's stuff thus far...well, okay, of the two I've seen. The plots to the others sound promising. I'll be keeping an eye out. I doubt they'll make it to the states in a theatrical form, but let's hope some do-gooder video distributor puts their mitts on a couple.

I'm done. I'm tired. I wanna sleep. I have to find somewhere new to live.

Cheers.