SABUTube Part IV - Drive

'Drive' (not the Ryan Gosling one)is SABU's fifth film, coming two years after his most accomplished film up to that point, 'Monday'. With his first two films, 'Dangan Ranna' and 'Postman Blues', being full of ideas, yet inconsistent in execution, does 'Drive' show a director more in control of his films' final delivery?

A salaryman, parked in his car, minding his own business - apart from eyeing-up the piece of totty with the umbrella - suddenly has three bank robbers jump into his car and demand that he follow a fourth robber in another car. What follows is a comedy moment with the criminals demanding their driver speeds up to catch the car in front, though they picked the wrong car.

Asakura is a man that sticks to the rules, having never stepped out of line in his life. Shots of traffic lights turning red and road signs for speed limits flash on screen to show the cause of passengers' anger, as Asakura follows them by the book. Having now lost the car they were pursuing, the three insist Asakura keeps driving as they have now taken him hostage.

Following an amusing moment culminating in a biro to the neck, the four flee the scene, and it's from this point onwards that things get a little bizarre. Arai, Susumu Terajima's Buddhist monk, winds up on stage with a punk band, spouting scriptures to the band's music to a young crowd. This is a very odd scene, feeling very clunky, with Terajima's words just not feeling natural as they come out.

Arai now a filly-fledged member of the band, the remaining trio get back in the car, stopping for food at Asakura's aunt's, before Masanobu Ando's young Makato has car sex with his girlfriend before getting talent spotted with some baseball batting, in what can only be described as an Aston Villa-esque rash decision from the scout.

And then there were two, but not for long: Ren Osugi's Nishi taking his sick daughter home from hospital. Asakura then finds the fourth bank robber they had previously chased, lying on the floor after having got his arm stuck in the ground, having hallucinations throughout the film as he tries to break free. A bizarre fight scene with a samurai ghost, Asakura then returns the money to the bank from which it was originally stolen, minus his expenses for its return, of course.

As you can tell, there are lots of unusual scenes in this film, throwing in strange and rushed conclusions for each character along the way. Again, there are some good ideas on display here, but again they maybe don't completely cohesively work together when trying to make a coherent film. The use of cutaways and flashbacks works well here in building the characters' stories, but things just don't feel as well thought out. 'Drive' is another interesting film from SABU, though a slightly bumpy journey.

So, courtesy of Rare Movies on YouTube, I have now seen four of SABU's first five films - his third film, 'Unlucky Monkey', of course getting a Region 2, English subtitled DVD release, and thus cannot be considered rare. So, I am now fully educated as to his earlier works, almost. So what of them?

Well, there is no doubt that SABU is a writer and director of interesting ideas, looking at the struggle of the everyday man. I would almost say there is some Kafkaesque satire of modern society, if I really felt I had the authority to describe something as 'Kafkaesque'. Man's motivations are explored, with Shinichi Tsutsumi often cast as the everyman  fighting against forces beyond his control. Though in each film, all the characters have the opportunities to make better of their lives or avoid the situations that befall them before tragedy sets in: perhaps SABU's biggest satire of all.

Though these strong ideas are not always fully polished and well-formed in their execution. 'Monday', probably the strongest of his early films is the best made, though there is a feeling that any of these films could go in any direction at any moment.

It would be fair to say that this is quite a 'raw' period in SABU's filmmaking career, therefore. Having not seen any of his subsequent films, I cannot confirm if this trend continues. But as Trevor Nelson said of Dr Dre's production - or well to paraphrase something I've made up he said - when it becomes too polished, it loses some of its fun.

SABU's early films are quite wild and all over the place; often clunky, sometimes almost cringe-worthy in the direction they take. But, they are no doubt interesting, thought-provoking and always with a nice sense of humour. We are none of us perfect. 

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.

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.