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| Mr. Matsunaga tries to get Akiko to stop following him in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Seventh Code (2013) |
I think I have a pretty good grasp of Japanese horror and its tropes. I spent 3 1/2 weeks one summer studying Japanese language and culture, and while I can barely say anything to anyone at this point, some cultural factors have stuck with me. So, Ringu, Ju-on, Pulse--I'm in fairly comfortable territory. As you can see from my review of Jellyfish Eyes, there's some things about Japanese Pop Culture that truly, truly baffle me. I like to be confused, but some events just seem kind of nutso. So while I love Shion Sono's Suicide Club (2001), the notion that teen pop stars are a diabolical force that could destroy the world--well, I never got the cult of One Direction either, so maybe I'm just out of touch. Seventh Code did not turn out to be the kind of film I thought it would be, which is a good thing. To a point.
The film opens with young Akiko (Atsuko Maeda) chasing a car down that happens to be carrying Mr. Matsunaga (Ryohei Suzuki), a man that she met in Japan at a nightclub. She seems to think that they formed a significant connection, while he barely remembers her at all. Oh, and they are both in Russia because that country has both thuggish mobsters and a nuclear power issue, and I guess it was cheaper to film there. He doesn't seem to question why she's chasing after him in Russia, and for a good chunk of the film, Akiko appears so hopelessly naive, you just chalk her persistence up to being a weirdo. She keeps stalking Mr. Matsunaga until a couple of goons throw a sack over her head and dump her in the middle of nowhere.
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| The moment I figured out what was really going on |
Akiko rather efficiently frees herself from the sack and her binding, and then gets back on track hunting down her crush. She even manages to get a job at a restaurant run by a Japanese chef and a Chinese server, and enlist them in her story, which is odd because she's not all that likeable. For the sake of the plot, they offer her a job, a place to stay, and the chef gets involved in uncovering Mr. Matsunaga's shady dealings with some bad Russians.
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| The Japanese Chef and Akiko investigate a weird thug hideout |
Akiko wants to believe that Mr. Matsunaga is innocent of wrongdoing, but events serve to slowly but surely change her mind. Or so it seems. I figured out fairly early where the rest of the film was headed, but there were still some enjoyable, if utterly nonsensical, surprises along the way. At one hour long, the film moves along at a decent clip. Then, all of a sudden, there's this pop singing performance by Akiko that gets inserted out of nowhere. WTF?
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| Akiko gives a full-on pop song performance with the cheesiest lyrics ever |
Turns out that Atsuko Maeda was a prominent member of the Japanese Pop Idol group AKB48, so people are familiar with her singing. This group is a big deal, and at one time had 48 members, and even performed a song on the Wreck it Ralph soundtrack, which proves without a shadow of a doubt that I know absolutely nothing about J-Pop. O-o-o-kay. But why does she sing HERE, in THIS film, out of the blue??? I don't know.
This film is very fun, but why it was paired with The Man with the Orange Jacket at the Fantasia Film Festival?? No clue. The ending really is a crowd-pleaser, amusing as hell, and the film is definitely worth checking out, in all its glorious genre-bending weirdness.
