REEL JAPAN

Score: 4/10

I admire several films and miniseries directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi. Some of his horror projects have stood the test of time and scrutiny with their subtlety and intensity. TOKYO SONATA probably went off the rails somewhere between the second and third draft of its screenplay. It commits hara kiri with an abrupt shift in style in the third act. Sadly, there was more than a kernel of potential for a great film here. TOKYO SONATA begins as a careful character study about Ryuhei, a petty and neurotic salaryman going to great lengths to avoid his family finding out he has been laid off from his job. Ryuhei is played by Kagawa Teruyuki (HANZAWA NAOKI, CREEPY). All of Kagawa’s performances are good. This is not his best, but, all things considered, he handles it with aplomb.

The camera follows Ryohei like a stalker obsessed with his sad existence. Ryuhei runs into a former schoolmate (Tsuda Kanji) also laid off and also fooling his family, who teaches him some tricks to keep the illusion going. But this unemployment buddy has an appointment with tragedy. Ryuhei’s long suffering wife, Megumi, is played brilliantly by Koizumi Kyoko (AMACHAN, PENANCE). She emotes such a wistful and ethereal vibe, she appears ghostlike at times. Meanwhile, their young son Kenji (Inowaki Kai) rebels against his stifling and fake home environment by pocketing his lunch money to pay for piano lessons with a beautiful music teacher down the street (Igawa Haruka). Inowaki (BERABOU/UNBOUND], IN THE WAKE) would go on to a prolific career. At this point, there are a lot of intriguing directions this story could go. 

After Kurosawa sets up this quirky scenario, he begins to allow exotic characters to infiltrate it. A much older son (Koyanagi Yu) comes and goes from their violent home seemingly oblivious to it all. The young man is mad at the world and desperate to make a difference so, inexplicably, he joins the American military. Thus follows an oddball examination of the responsibilities of Japan to American hegemony in the world, a clumsy political statement of sorts, and exactly what this film does not need. 

After 80 minutes in, the film descends into a series of over-the-top expressionist vignettes in the vein of 1970s avant-garde European cinema. TOKYO SONATA was released in 2008 during the financial crisis and it bears the imprint of panic. The most panicked character to appear is a failed-locksmith turned burglar played with wild abandon by superstar Yakusho. From the moment he brandishes his knife, he appears to be a refugee from another movie. Frankly, Megumi’s plot threads deserved to be resolved in a way that would have given Koizumi a chance to shine rather than pairing her depressed housewife with another violent man with a different shade of violence. Kurosawa’s promising vision of a decaying family facing financial ruin could have yielded a steady harvest. His decision to trade a slow payoff for shock value is a shame. 

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