Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Chips

After the devastating 2011 earthquake, the city of Sendai could use something to cheer about.  An unassuming burglar could too.  He has a girlfriend considerably out of his league and a mentor who cares about him in his own gruff fashion, but he has a lot of issues gnawing at him.  However, redemption may yet arrive through the most unlikeliest of agencies in Yoshihiro Nakamura’s graceful knockout punch of a film, Potechi (Chips), the official closing film of the 2012 New YorkAsian Film Festival, co-presented with the 2012 edition of Japan Cuts: The NewYork Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema (trailer here).

Tadashi Imamura dresses like a gasman, but it is just a front.  He works pretty steadily though, since the ringleader (a.k.a. “the CEO”) of a burglary ring has taken a shine to him.  Earnest to a fault, the young thief is pretty good at his job, having been trained by one of the best—the glacially stoic Kurosawa.  Breaking-and-entering has been good to Imamura.  Through a strange set of circumstances, a job led to his relationship with the attractive Wakaba.  However, Imamura gets an odd sensation of déjà vu when he drags his indulgent girlfriend on a fateful break-in.

Imamura did not just happen to be in a certain baseball player’s apartment when the phone rings.  Ozaki has long been his sports idol.  The player used to be Sendai’s local hero during his high school years, but for several seasons he has been stuck riding the pine for the local pro franchise.  Imamura still has faith though, feeling a certain connection to the player.  As it happens, he and Ozaki share the same birth date.

Potechi (or Chips depending on which website you visit) is driven by a confluence of coincidences, yet Nakamura never bashes the audience over the head with them.  Instead, he allows them to quietly accumulate over time.  What could have been heavy as an anvil is quite subtle and beguiling, until Nakamura dexterously lowers the climatic emotional boom.

As the felonious Obiwan figure, Nao Ohmori (still best known as Ichi the Killer) displays super-heroic powers of understatement, dominating his scenes with his uber-gravitas.  Still, it is Gaku Hamada who truly sets the tenor of the film as Imamura with a performance so sincere, it sort of hurts.  Fumino Kimura’s spirited Wakaba keeps the proceedings nicely grounded, while Nakamura himself steals a few scenes as the CEO.

Potechi (Chips) is a fantastic little film, but the sixty-eight minute running time might make it difficult for some fests to program (fyi, stay for the stinger during the closing credits).  Fortunately, Japan Cuts and NYAFF will screen anything they jolly well feel like, which is why they rock.  In an elliptical way, it is a film about healing that earns its payoff fair and square.  Very highly recommended, Potechi (Chips) screens this Sunday (7/15) as the 2012 NYAFF closes and the 2012 Japan Cuts continues with its independent selections.

Japan Cuts ’12 & NYAFF ’12: Tokyo Playboy Club

Do not think retro-hipness with regards to this Shinjuku hostess club.  Think more along the lines of the quickly canceled NBC TV show, squalidly trading off a rapidly fading brand name.  It is a decidedly low-rent establishment, but that is how small-time gangster Seikichi gets by.  However, a whole mess is trouble is headed towards the seedy night spot in Yôsuke Okuda’s Tokyo Playboy Club (trailer here), which screens as a co-presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and New York Asian film festivals.

A stoic hardnose like Katsutoshi does not belong at Seikichi’s dive, but after sort of accidentally killing someone at his last straight gig, the not really reformed gangster needs to lie low in Tokyo for a spell.  He ought to be at the right place for that, but this is a chaotic time at the TPC.  Seikichi’s goofer Takahiro made off with the petty cash, only to be double-crossed by a pregnant lover.  Now he and his live-in girlfriend Eriko are stuck working off the debt.  Katsutoshi does not help matters much by picking fights with Yakuza lieutenants.  This means more tribute must be paid.  At this point, things really start to get complicated for the TPC proprietor and his staff.

Nao Ohmori of Ichi the Killer fame is all kinds of bad as Katsutoshi.  He looks like existential alienation walking.  Yet, he slowly develops some hard-earned chemistry with Asami Usuda’s Eriko.  Despite being required to spend about a third of the film in near catatonia, she also nicely handles some intriguing moments of deep self-awareness.  Raising sleaziness to new heights, Ken Mitsuishi’s oily turn as Seikichi is also certainly effective, in a contempt-inspiring way. 

Unfortunately, Okuda’s pacing is not nearly as breakneck as it ought to be, while he is hell-bent on undercutting any lasting sense of emotional payoff.  Frankly, it seems like he is too enamored with this sordid world, refusing to allow any of its characters to escape.  Ultimately, TPC is a film with several wickedly clever scenes that all hang together rather awkwardly.  Recommended more for committed aficionados of Japanese Yakuza and crime films than general patrons of Japanese cinema, Tokyo Playboy Club screens this Saturday (7/14) at the Japan Society as a joint presentation of the 2012 Japan Cuts and the New York Asian film festivals.