SABUTube Part II - Dangan Ranna

SABU's debut feature 'Dangan Ranna', or 'Non-Stop' depending on your preference, is a bit of a mixed bag. A film about running, this is both slow and fast, violent yet humorous, some parts good, some parts bad.

Ironman Tomorowo Taguchi plays Yasuda, an inept man in work, romance and society in general. Annoyed at the world, he gets himself a gun and plans to rob a bank. And this is where the small stabs of humour arise. Forgetting to get himself a mask to cover his face for the job, he jumps into a convenience store to get one. But with thievery on his mind, he decides to try and steal one, and the alert clerk picks up on the would-be thief. A stand-off ensues, with Yasuda firing his weapon and escaping the resulting melee.

Yasuda then runs, pursued by the clerk, whom is then introduced to us as failed musician and drug addict, Aizawa in the form of flashbacks. Troubled by a yakuza hassling him for money and high on smack, he runs after Yasuda. Neither looking to stop anytime soon, we follow their running through the streets, passing Aizawa's yakuza agitator, Takeda. Also troubled by the recent murders of his boss and 'aniki', Takeda follows the chase in pursuit of Aizawa. What then follows is three men running, with seemingly no stopping likely.

SABU chooses to break up the running with flashbacks of the trio's lives, showing this is not a film about what the three are running after, but running from. All are troubled, and the endless running is their escape from their daily lives, acting as therapy as they mull over their problems. Seriousness though is mixed with humour, with the three all having sexual fantasies about a random woman they run passed, a free promotion acting as a marathon-style drinks break and running over Tokyo's Rainbow Bridge, only to run back over it in the opposite direction.  

As the film develops, however, more characters are brought in. A yakuza war develops as a subplot and a group of four bored policeman exchange dialogue about their favourite guns. It's the introduction of a wider story where the film gets a little lost and confused in trying to build toward the conclusion. And that's maybe the film's problem: While a nice set-up with the reasoning for the three men running from life, how to bring it to an end is difficult, with the film's alternate title 'Non-Stop' maybe wishful thinking for SABU.

This could have been kept as a short, ending with the characters simply running and running. But obviously as this is a feature, some sort of conclusion is required. This may be where some naivety for a debut director comes in, but the film's end is not a total disaster.

A strong idea, with a good balance of humour thrown in where necessary, this is filmmaking for the fun of it. Released two years before Germany's 'Run Lola Run' - a film also short and undecided on its conclusion - it shows SABU is a filmmaker with lots of interesting and playful ideas to work with, though as a then novice, maybe this idea just ran out of a little steam.