FISH STORY

 Fisshu Sutori | Yoshihiro Nakamura | 2009

PLOT:
2012, group of men having chit-chat in a record store, discussing an LP of a visionary punk band that was released before the Sex Pistol’s made “punk boom”. A giant comet was seen in broad daylight heading towards earth for apocalypse.

2009, a sleepyhead high school girl was left out in a ship by her schoolmates and experienced terrorist attack, until a brave man arrived and posed the hero.

1982, a cowardly college student trapped in a car with a song that carries mystical rumors in pitch-black midnight, on the road, alone. A scream of a woman was heard.

1975, a loud ruckus of a band is recording their final song because the record label decided to take the lead singer as a solo artist. A novel held responsible for the lyrics it contained.

1950, after the war, a Japanese publishing company is in dire need of translators to keep business afloat. A man came to provide service; he translated an English language novel into wretched nonsense.

NOTES:

Yes, this is one of those movies with different timezones but somehow interconnected to one another. But don't give up all hope; this isn’t Crash or Love Actually. This one’s decent.

Adapted from KotaraIsaka’s novel with the same title, the film asked, “Can music save the world?”.
In this movie, it can. It did.

Instead of focusing on the apocalypse, this movie took a luminous perspective in looking at the whole ‘end of days’ fuss. It’s a brilliant comedy-drama that took 38 years of consequence bearing. I supposed the plot description is clear enough to give you the gist (if not a spoiler), but the main thing in this movie is the character development. There are plenty of rooms for the character to emphasize their personalities, and the cast (also the writers) embraced it splendidly.

Dialogs are sharp, sentences are efficient.

I have no data about the production budget, but the time difference were portrayed appropriately without having any fancy preps and props. It was all done in the delivery; how each story linked to one another by popping up accordingly in different state of time, and how each character complimented its current zone.  I put my applause and highlights to the casts.

Apart from the popular “random fucking” and “pray for all your sins” end-of-the-world choices, are you brave enough to dedicate your remaining time with music, for music’s sake?

Movie Trailer

Gekirin Music Video