Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Koji Fukada
Starring: Win Morisaki, Kaho Tsuchimura, Kei Ishibashi, Shugo Oshinari, Akari Fukunaga, Shohei Uno
If there's a lesson to be learned from the recent work of Japanese
filmmaker Koji Fukada, it's that no good deed goes unpunished. In
his disturbing 2016 thriller
Harmonium, a family suffers in ghastly fashion when they accept an ex-prisoner
into their home. In his most recent film,
A Girl Missing, a kindly woman's life is ruined when she is accused of being involved
in the abduction of the younger sister of the teenager she helps study for
a nursing exam. In the films of Fukada, orderly people end up in disarray
through the actions of others. He seems to have taken Sartre's line "Hell
is other people" to heart.
In his new sprawling epic, The Real Thing, we get yet another orderly protagonist whose life is upended by the
actions of someone else. In this case, however, it's in a movie that might
be labelled a romantic comedy, and far from the misanthropy you might
expect, here Fukada seems to suggest that disruption is necessary for a
complete life.
Tsuji (Win Morisaki) is something of a perfectionist who likes to
keep the various elements of his life in separate, neat boxes. This has
allowed him to carry on affairs with two female coworkers at his place of
employment, the office of a toy and fireworks manufacturer. Both women –
the older Ms Hosokawa (Kei Ishibashi) and young airhead
Minako (Akari Fukunaga) – are convinced that Tsuji will one day be
their husband, but he has no such intentions.
One night, while bringing a damaged toy package to the attention of a
disinterested store clerk, Tsuji gets talking to Ukiyo (Kaho Tsuchimura), a confused woman looking for directions. His attempt at flirting seems
to go over her head, but later he finds her car stuck between the guard
rails of a train track, with a locomotive bearing down. Tsuji manages to
rescue Ukiyo, only for her to lie to the police and tell them Tsuji was
driving the car. Tsuji storms off in a huff, but the next day he receives
a phone call from a car rental company hoping to track down Ukiyo, who
owes them for the use of the car. Tsuji tracks her down and finds himself
inveigled in the topsy turvy world of Ukiyo, which involves violent
Yakuza, an embittered ex-husband and a former lover with whom she once
attempted a suicide pact.
The Real Thing has much in common with those '80s comedies
like After Hours,
Something Wild
and Into the Night, where mild-mannered men find themselves dragged into an adventure by a
charismatic woman. The difference her is that while those movies played
out across a single day or night and moved at a rapid pace, the narrative
of The Real Thing sprawls out over five years. The other key
difference is that Ukiyo is as far from the femme fatale trope as you
could find. Shy and taciturn, she spends much of the movie meekly
apologising for the various scrapes she's gotten Tsuji involved in.
Despite putting him through an emotional ringer, Tsuji becomes unable to
live without Ukiyo, constantly returning to her, only to find himself
facing some new unexpected obstacle from her chequered past.
With his latest film, Fukada seems to be critiquing the judgemental nature
of Japanese society and its hypocritical attitude to female sexuality.
Ukiyo has been branded a slut for having a child out of wedlock, but we
later learn the dark truth behind the conception. In the street she's
mauled and harassed by drunken men. At Tsuji's workplace, Minako is
scolded by a superior for dying her hair pink – "We have a reputation to
maintain." Tsuji has lived his life trying to maintain a reputation, but
through Ukiyo he comes to learn that some things in life are worth a bit
of scandal.
Originally made as a TV series and then edited down to almost four hours,
The Real Thing presents a challenge to impatient viewers,
who may wish to break it up into a couple of more manageable chunks. Its
over-reliance on dialogue betrays its small screen origins, but in a way
this only serves to underline the point Fukada is making about idle gossip
and hearsay. We hear many things about Ukiyo from various people who have
been damaged by her, or have themselves damaged her, and we're never
entirely sure which version of the truth to believe. Similarly, the
extended runtime, while occasionally dragging in parts, serves to enhance
the feeling that we've been on an exhausting journey with Tsuji and Ukiyo.
Moments of humour – including a hilarious bit of business with a water
pistol – go a long way to lightening the load.
A curious mish mash of film noir and sentimental drama, like
Blue Velvet remade by Hirokazu Kore-eda,
The Real Thing is a tonal change of pace from Fukada, albeit
one filled with the many twists and turns you expect from his
storytelling. If you're willing to have four hours of your life upended by
the enigmatic Ukiyo, it's a largely satisfying examination of the
necessary toll romance can take on our lives.
The Real Thing is on US VOD from
June 4th. A UK/ROI release has yet to be announced.
