| Survive Style 5+ is the kind of film that is rarely made because it is so out of the box that producers and financiers have no interest in taking a chance on it. It's difficult, in fact, to even categorize this film into a genre. I'd probably slip it into the dark comedy segment, but it contains elements found in action, horror, science fiction, and also drama.
In this bizarre film, five seemingly independent stories somehow come together: A man kills and buries his wife only to find her quite alive when he arrives home--over and over again; A salaryman, with a wife and two kids, sees a famous hypnotist only to be permanently turned into a man who thinks he's a chicken; An advertising executive loses it and comes up with some of the most vulgar commercials ever seen; A gang of young criminals find out they have homosexual tendencies; An English assassin (played wonderfully by British soccer player Vinnie Jones) looks for new clients.
Somehow director Gen Sekiguchi, pulls all these stories together with hilarious effect. Sekiguchi isn't even really a film director. This was his first and only effort to-date. His day job is directing commercials for TV. Which is why this all works so perfectly. The visuals in this film are STUNNING. The sets, costumes, and props combine to create surreal scenes. The colors are incredible. Hopefully you'll be watching this on a large TV. The acting is first rate. I found myself looking forward to whenever Vinnie Jones was on screen. His acting was over the top and funny beyond belief. |
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