Matt Cooper Films

A Muse Never Drowns (2022) by Nozomi Asao

Sakuko Kizaki (Miku Uehara) is a member of her high-school art club along with her friend Emi Otani (Kokoro Morita) and talented fellow student Hikaru Saibara (Kogarashi Wakasugi). While the group are out sketching at the docks, Sakuko is knocked into the water. Hikaru paints the flailing Sakuko and the picture is hung up in the school stairwell and praised for its quality. When Hikaru asks Sakuko to model for a new portrait, she is at first unwilling, not understanding the reason for her classmate’s interest in her. Meanwhile, Sakuko is being forced to pack up her things at home as her family, her father (Yota Kawase) and his new heavily pregnant wife Satomi (So Hirosawa), are moving out. Believing she has little talent for art she bags up her sketches and drawings, but soon finds a new creative outlet, collecting bits and pieces from the things they are throwing out and constructing a boat from the discarded scraps.

“A Muse Never Drowns” is a beautifully composed film, with each element helping drive forward the themes of growth and creativity. From the first moment we see Sakuko sketching the boat, to the final moments when we see the wildly creative construction she has made from junk, we see her develop in a way that is relatable and believable. Writer-director Nozomi Asao focuses on the relationship between Sakuko and Hikaru, creating an incredible depth of emotion between them. The power of their scenes is in the subtle everyday concerns that are driving them, anxieties about their own talents, and fears for the future, as well as uncomfortably new feelings of affection. The performances of Miku Uehara, Kokoro Morita and Kogarashi Wakasugi are note perfect, reflecting their immaturity alongside a growing sense of self-confidence and yearning for independence without veering into melodrama. Sakuko’s home situation is likewise understated; she has a good relationship with both parents, but with an underlying tension due to the loss of her birth mother. Asao’s use of visual and narrative metaphor works well without being too obvious. Some great examples of this are the fantastical boat that Sakuko constructs from the broken pieces of her home; and the sequence in which we see this home being demolished. Characters occassionaly philosophise on life and relationships, but the script manages to work in these more poetic moments with the characters and situations.

A coming-of-age film that expertly weaves plot and theme together in its tale of young women confronting the future and themselves. Sakuko is typical of many young teenagers, having been passionate about something, but later realising that there are more talented individuals out there. Hikaru, who seems to Sakuko to be achieving everything she wants, is also anxious about the things she is unable to attain. Together they are able to see life more clearly, finding solace in each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and reassess what it is they want from life. They come to realise the importance of creativity and constant reinvention. We learn early in the film that they are the only two who have yet to submit their applications to higher education, emphasising this sense that both are lost and unable to see the path forward. They have spent so long trapped in their own hopes and anxieties that they are unable to see that they need to change in order to progress. The film ends with this positive message that people are able to change, to adapt, and to reinvent themselves constantly in order to face a world that can be full of unexpected disappointments. A wonderful coming-of-age story that is sure to resonate with audiences young and old.

Matt Cooper Films

Suzume (2022) by Makoto Shinkai

High-schooler Suzume (Nanoka Hara and Akari Miura as young Suzume) has lived with her aunt Tamaki (Eri Fukatsu) since her mother passed away 12 years prior. On her way to school one day, she passes a mysterious older boy Souta (Hokuto Matsumura) who asks her if there are any ruins nearby. It seems that their quiet coastal town contains a door that offers a view through to a parallel world and one that contains within it a violent force in the shape of a large worm. Souta has arrived in town to prevent the worm breaking loose and causing a devastating earthquake. Suzume unwittingly removes the Keystone that takes the form of a white cat named Daijin (Ann Yamane) and transforms Souta into a three-legged chair. Feeling responsible for the impending disaster, Suzume sets out to chase the cat across Japan, carrying Souta with her as the two attempt to prevent the worms from emerging through the doors.

Makoto Shinkai is a director who seems to have found the magic formula for creating intriguing, engaging and moving stories. Following the success of “Your Name” and “Weathering with You”, this film brings together many of the familiar elements from those works, combining it with an original story that outdoes both in terms of it’s epic scope and emotional impact. From the first moments, the animation is exceptional, with swaying grasses, glittering water, sparkling constellations, ruins brimming with incredible detail, and every conceivable weather lovingly rendered. RADWIMPS return again to provide the soundtrack to the film along with Kazuma Jinnouchi. There are also a number of pop hits played during a road-trip sequence that are sure to have you tapping along. At this point Shinkai’s sublime animation, the sound design that wraps you in a believable world of wind, rain, chirping cicadas, and bustling background noise, is perhaps taken for granted. The story this time around relies less on the romantic boy-meets-girl plot of previous works, instead functioning as a coming-of-age story for Suzume and containing a much deeper theme relating to the tragedy of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011. Rather than referring back to his own works, Shinkai pays homage to Hayao Miyazaki, in the adventurous female protagonist tackling not only a magical world, but also deep seated personal trauma. The Ghibli connection is made explicit in a couple of nods to “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. The road trip approach to the story, taking us from Kyushu, through Shikoku, to Kobe, Tokyo, and on to Miyagi, gives the film a forward momentum, enlivened by the epic confrontations of gods and demons from a parallel underworld, light humorous touches, and the colourful characters Suzume encounters (voiced by a number of great actors including Sairi Ito, Shota Sometani, and Ryunosuke Kamiki.

“Suzume” discusses the trauma of death, both general and specific, in a way that is accessible enough for a young audience without shying away from the harsh reality. By personifying the earthquakes, the film captures the sense of indiscriminate danger caused by them. We learn later in the film that Suzume was displaced from her home, taken to Kyushu to live with her aunt, following the earthquake of 2011, an event that still casts a shadow over many lives. The film treats its subject respectfully and earns the emotional pay off in Suzume’s story, which in less skilled hands could have seemed trite and exploitative. The film also returns to some of the ambiguity and complexity of Shinkai’s earlier works, with a moment of raw drama between Suzume and Tamaki that captures their fraught yet loving relationship. Even for those unfamiliar or not directly touched by the disaster, this story of a girl struggling to come to terms with the sudden, untimely death of her mother, is heart-wrenchingly believable.

Matt Cooper Films

Drive into Night (2022) by Dai Sako

Workers at a scrap-metal plant become involved in a police investigation in this multi-layered, psychological crime drama. Akimoto (Tomomitsu Adachi), spends his days driving around trying to secure scrap iron for his company. One night while out drinking with his co-worker Taniguchi (Reo Tamaoki), the two meet a saleswoman who was at their company earlier in the day and has been for a drink with the foreman Hongo (Tsutomu Takahashi). Following an incident that we don’t see much detail of, the woman disappears and suspicion falls on the company. Akimoto and Taniguchi succeed in placing the blame on Hongo, who must deal with the police enquiries, while the two men involved in the disappearance deal with their guilt over what happened.

The first half of “Drive into Night” is a sleek crime thriller, setting up several everyman characters, complete with their quotidian neuroses, extra-marital affairs, and their mundane, interminable work-life cycle. None of them appear particularly villainous, which makes what happens to the woman all the more shocking. After her disappearance, the film splits in two with one strand following Hongo and Taniguchi as they cover for their crimes and try to understand what is happening; and the other part following Akimoto as he becomes involved with a bizarre organization that claim to be able to create a new life for their followers. Akimoto’s relationship with a Filipino hostess, and entanglements with the Yakuza, suggest that the writer and director would be comfortable making a conventional crime drama, but are choosing to go off-piste and make something far more compelling and thought-provoking. The religious overtones, references to the devil, the ‘rebirth’ of Akimoto, ideas of sin and guilt, come together with the more traditional fare of hidden bodies, an underworld of clubs operated by gangsters, and cheating wives to create a film that is operating on more than one level, a knotted narrative that requires some work to untangle. The pared-back electric guitar of the detective story growls with heavy distortion when we reach moments of psychological trauma, further establishing the film as a bi-partite treatise on both the emotional and physical nature of humanity.

Dai Sako’s stylish direction, with outstanding cinematography by Yasutaka Watanabe, carries the film forward and offers a key to what is truly happening with the characters and the themes. The ultra-modern visual style matches the up-to-the-minute references to coronavirus and a sign proudly proclaiming the beginning of the Reiwa era. The mystery at the heart of the film soon becomes immaterial as we follow its effects on the characters involved, or implicated in the death of the woman. “Drive into Night” succeeds in telling several thematically and tonally diverse stories, which come together to create a fascinating if discordant whole.

Matt Cooper Television

Alice in Borderland Series 2 (2022)

Series 2 picks up right where we left off, with Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) and his new friends taking on the face card challenges in the hopes of finding their way out of the bizarre other world they are trapped in. Episode one begins with a burst of violence as the King of Spades guns people down mercilessly in a much-changed Shibuya, showing that nobody is safe. This proves to be true as the deaths pile up throughout the series, including several shocks. We see several more games this time around, all ultra-violent twists on old classics, such as a guessing game where the losers are doused in corrosive acid, or a high-octane game of tag that sees contestants running around a giant industrial structure. The large budget is evident on screen in the fantastic sets and special effects, particularly bringing to life an abandoned Tokyo overgrown with weeds, and the swooping, wide-angle shots that make the unreal seem believable. There are elements of disaster movie, action, romance, and science-fiction that are all underscored with the central emotional drama of the main cast. Most are returning characters, with the inclusion of newcomer Yuri Tsunematsu as a no-nonsense high-school girl. The central mystery is not unravelled until the final episode, and then with a couple of entertaining misdirections (referencing two other popular ‘death game’ series, “Kaiji” and “Gantz”). Wrapping things up is a big task and the solution may prove unsatisfactory for some viewers who were hoping for a different explanation as to what happened, but it does a solid job of bringing together the themes of the show in a way that feels fitting.

The ‘Death Game’ genre lives or dies on its characters. “Alice in Borderland” remains opaque enough throughout that viewers are free to interpret its message as they like. It works as a socio-political satire with the unseen forces of the world putting its citizens through a meat grinder. The arbitrariness of death, the senseless nature of the games, the unbeatable odds, all lend themselves to interpretation, either philosophical or political. The series’ intent is to shock its viewers into living life rather than losing hope. It shouts at us that we need to keep fighting, to keep trying, however hard or futile things seem, and that in the end the only thing that matters is life. Throughout Arisu is searching for an answer, a meaning to his life, or an explanation to this world, and the series continues to deny this to him, and by extension the audience. In the instance that the truth is revealed we are almost beyond the point where the answer has any meaning to us. Instead the underlying message of the series is that of human solidarity in the face of adversity, confronting our mortality, and the idea of simply living as an end in itself.

Matt Cooper Films

Hell Dogs (2022) by Masato Harada

Goro Idezaki (Junichi Okada) is working his first shift as a patrol officer when five people are gunned down in an armed robbery. Believing he was to blame he sets out to kill the members of the Chinese gang responsible. He is later picked up by the chief of the undercover crime squad and asked to infiltrate the Toshokai yakuza group. Under the name of Kanetaka he pairs with another yakuza hitman called Muroka (Kentaro Sakaguchi). The two are assigned to protect the new head of the family, Toake (Miyavi). As he gets closer to bringing down the group, Kentaro must ensure that his cover is not blown.

Based on a comic book by Akio Fukamachi and directed by Masato Harada, who also wrote the script, “Hell Dogs” is a stylish crime thriller with flashes of nihilistic violence. The story will be familiar to fans of the genre, with an undercover cop; various double-crosses; sexual liaisons that threaten to undermine the operation; and gangster in sharp suits. The array of characters creates a sense of realism, with bosses and capos, enforcers, the mob wife, the police chief, the love interest, an assassin, call girls, and more enlivening the world, although due to the constrictions of film many are little more than plot drivers. The central relationship between Kanetaka and Muroka is well-done, although there is never any real sense that Kanetaka has conflicted loyalties, which seems like a missed opportunity to create some tension. Several side characters, in particular Noriko (Shinobu Otake) suffer from this lack of time, with their backstories largely brushed over. That being said the star-studded cast is firing on all cylinders, bringing these archetypes to life with charisma to spare. The action sequences are well-done, leaving no doubt about the brutality of these criminal regimes, though they occasionally tip into the ludicrous, such as when two people miss each other several times from point-blank range. These moments occur often enough to be considered the film’s ironic humour, or a sideways comment on genre conventions, as when a character comments on never having seen a female assassin before.

Idezaki’s redemption arc sets him on a hero’s path, journeying through hell to make amends for his past mistakes. Although he is not personally to blame for the initial crime, his determination to set things rights displays a lex talionis sense of justice. A question arises as to whether Idezaki is driven by a sense of justice, or something darker, hate, drive to dominate, or pure aggression. Bosses on both sides of the criminal divide point Idezaki at a target, which begs the question of how different they are and whether Idezaki’s life is guided more by luck than free will. This comparison is brought up again, when Muroka relates Idezaki’s story, not knowing who he is, suggesting that ideas of honour, loyalty and justice are mirrored in the police and the yakuza. One side story that is given short shrift is that of Muroka’s ex-girlfriend, who has begun a survivors group for people who have lost loved ones to gang violence. It is one of several curious ideas thrown into the mix, another being the various undercover agents who are revealed throughout and the police force’s negligence in taking care of them. A complex crime thriller with enough interesting characters to breathe life into the well-worn story of a cop going undercover in the yakuza.