VIFF review: Japan’s Special Actors is cartoonishly fun
Director of 2018 VIFF hit One Cut of the Dead returns with a meta zany caper about a cult, a stress ball, and a fainting actor
Two male actors wearing blue shirts with a shocked expression on their faces. Still from Special Actor's.
Streams September 24 to October 7 as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival, via VIFF.org
ONE CUT OF the Dead hit VIFF 2018 on its way to global acclaim and record-breaking profits, although I was more exhausted than charmed by Shin'ichirô Ueda’s antic, gimmicky zom-com. (A minority opinion, I know.)
The director’s second feature exhibits the same meta-zany tendencies but with more heart.
Kazuto (Kazuto Osawa) is a would-be actor with a critical flaw: he faints during confrontations. Persuaded by his brother to join a company of actors specializing in real-life capers, Kazuto becomes a reluctant player in an elaborate ruse designed to expose a fraudulent cult (in contrast to an honest one.)
There’s rich potential in the cult angle, summarily dismissed in favour of wrong-footing the viewer with nested reveals and plot twists, a compulsion pushed to its absolute limit in the film’s final, admittedly touching few seconds. Baby-faced Osawa carries the rather indifferently shot effort, feverishly squeezing his “boob” (actually a stress ball) as each progressively outlandish situation mounts. It’s cartoonishly fun, then instantly forgotten.
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