The Movie: His Bad Blood (いつくしみふかき)
The Director: Kôichirô Ôyama
The Cast: Yu Toyama, Ikkei Watanabe, Sakura Enomoto, Ryo Ushimaru, Naoki Goto
The Story: A criminal father and his persecuted son, not knowing who the other is, separately seek refuge at a church where the reverend takes them in and protects them from their dark past.
The Review:
Thanks to the powers of marketing and promotion, you sometimes look at a movie and say, oh that looks unique and interesting but quite often it turns out to be redundant and boring. This movie is the exception that actually delivers on that promise with a story that weaves it's way along a very different path and keeps you guessing as it deftly subverts expectations. There were several times when I thought the predictable was about to happen but then all of a sudden things would take a bit of a turn and I couldn't wait to see how those moments would affect the rest of the story.
What's most interesting is how director Kôichirô Ôyama never goes the route of over simplifying the characters, or the father son dynamic that is the core of the story, by having them make what we might predict to be the noble and just decision. Everyone in the story is flawed and they all make bad decisions and the whole point of the movie isn't in how they redeem themselves but in how they, as flawed human beings, continue to deal with the flawed decision making they make as human beings.
His Bad Blood is not the happy ending fairy tale movie you might be used to but, in the end, it is a much more satisfying experience because we can all relate to it just a little bit more than we expect or maybe want to.
His Bad Blood is an official selection of the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.
To see more reviews, interviews and festival coverage please go to:
TwoOhSix at Fantasia 2019
Check out the brand new TwoOhSix.com Podcast!
No comments:
Post a Comment