Bright Future

kurosawa commits hard to the jellyfish metaphor for a lost generation left to float around a maze of smog and concrete, yearning for escape and stinging anyone who gets too close. sounds silly but it's kk so it's mundanely disturbing with some breathless flourishes (but also----very silly). this is my 8th visit to the nu-rosawa asylum and most of them are unique snowflakes even within his filmog, this is a filmmaker everyone ought to deep-dive at some point (start with TOKYO SONATA!).

Previously, I've enjoyed Kurosawa's "Pulse" and to a lesser effect "Creep", but this one left me cold. I respected how Kurosawa wanted to handle themes like alienation and generation gap, but the film failed to grab me. The overtly digital style was also distracting. One bright spot was to see Tatsuya Fuji in this.

Generation gaps? Listless youth? Urban crime? Jellyfish?

It's strange that as heavy-handed as it is in places, it still feels so unfocused. That sounds bad, but it fits the subject matter well, as does the simultaneously cheap-looking and beautiful cinematography.

Extremely unusual, even when you start reading into its cultural themes. Tied with Cure as my favorite of this director's interesting (though, not especially great -- or even that good) catalog of films. This statement is based on the fourteen films of his I've seen.

I really didn't get what this was supposed to be about, although it was pretty interesting anyway. The luminescent jellyfish reminded me of Zissou. I enjoyed the soundtrack a lot.