SABUTube Part I - Monday

I hate streaming. 'Netflix n bollocks,' as far as I'm concerned. I want to watch things on a proper screen, without any buffering, loading or nonsense; tilting your bloody laptop screen to get an angle that makes darker scenes momentarily visible. But without distributers releasing films that I actually want to see, either at cinemas or on DVD/Blu Ray, I do have to seek things out online.

Typically, my YouTube feed is bad Japanese hip hop, bad Japanese football and worryingly bad 'vlogs' of Japanese men putting Coca-Cola (actual Coca-Cola) up their nose in their bedroom. But every now and then I'll get a suggestion - that isn't 'just kill yourself now!' - a suggestion to watch slightly grainy versions of full length Japanese films from yesteryear, with English subtitles.

Typically, it goes against my principles - I'm Jeremy Corbyn, me - to watch things for free online, knowing that these are made by lowly directors working with small budgets, putting a lot in for little reward. But sometimes there just isn't any other way of seeing them: These are films that are close to two decades old, would have received little attention on original release, and now serve only for film nerds like me to hark on about when filmmaking was more raw.

Recently, the 'Rare Movies' YouTube page has been offered to me in the form 'recommendations' of 'Monday (2000) full movie english subtitles', 'Postman Blues (1997) Eng Subtitles' and 'Drive (2002) eng subtitles'. All of these 'rare movies' have the pleasure of having been written and directed by none-other-than Tanaka Hiroyuki: the man known as SABU. You remember SABU, he was the ex-cop-turned-yakuza-bodyguard in 'Ichi the Killer'. He also directs his own movies, rare movies apparently.

So, given that I was being offered the opportunity to see his hard-to-come-by films for free (excluding monthly broadband costs, electricity bills and buying a laptop), I decided to make my way through his early offerings offered in slightly dodgy form.

Being that it was the first day of the working week, I started with...

Monday (2000)

Takagi is your everyday (especially on Mondays) Japanese salaryman. Yet on this particular Monday, instead of heading to the start of the working week, he finds himself waking in a strange hotel room at the conclusion of a manic weekend. But there's one problem: he has no idea how he got there. Going through his personal artefacts, he gradually starts to piece together the story of what happened.

Starting off at a funeral where he inadvertently causes the corpse to explode, he then alienates himself from his girlfriend with some strange behaviour, before ending up at the wrong bar. Alcohol soon proves to be his downfall with each additional drink seeing his situation grow worse and worse. Turning on the television, he sees the reality of what happened to him, finding himself the centre of attention with no way out.

'Monday' is a stylish film, with good camerawork for some tasty angles, but is laced with humour throughout, particularly Tsutsumi Shinichi's dance scene as the drunken Takagi descends into drunken madness. Jaunty editing blurs the line between sophistication and stupidity nicely. This is a satire towards the film's conclusion, questioning the right to murder, hold a gun, but most importantly, the right to use being drunk as an excuse - one I am particularly fond of.

There are some clunky moments throughout the film. The speed of the descent, the slow-acting police at the film's conclusion; though these do add to the sense of surreal humour in the film, in a slow-paced, distinctly Japanese brand of cinema, where unbelievable scenarios are met with a very everyday sense of disbelief.

Tsutsumi Shinichi - often the lead in early SABU films - gives a charming performance as Takagi, who goes through every emotion going on his weekend rollercoaster, with cameos from everybody's favourite supporting actors in Japanese cinema, Susumu Terajima, Ren Osugi and the beautifully named Tomorowo Taguchi.

Drinking like there's no tomorrow will only lead you to not like what the morning will bring, and this is what SABU explores in 'Monday'. Stylish and satirical, this is one Monday you won't not like.