What can you say about a film that starts with a funeral? Well, almost starts with a funeral: our hero (an unassuming salaryman) wakes up in a hotel room, discovers that it’s Monday instead of the Saturday he was expecting, and tries to remember his weekend.
While this might be a familiar experience for some of you, what he gradually pieces together of his action-packed 60 hours would not be familiar. It starts with the funeral, at which, in the midst of the solemn gathering around the coffin, the phone rings. Turns out that the deceased had a pacemaker that needs to be removed. Oh, great. Our hero gets dobbed in to dig about in the deceased’s chest (not too deeply, which is lucky), in search of the item.
The excision doesn’t quite go as planned, and his weekend just gets worse from there. He goes on a drinking binge of Norse-god proportions, gets involved with yakuza, and ends up, well, in the hotel room with a choice to make.
I can’t tell you more, but I can tell you that this Japanese black comedy will probably keep your eyes open for the duration. Whether you’ll be able to shut them again afterwards is a question I don’t wish to get into.
A fine film, with more twists and turns than your intestines, and something you have to see to believe.