Masanori Tominaga directs Tadanobu Asano in the bizarre comedy "Ranbou to Taiki"

by Chris MaGee

Masanori Tominaga is an odd director. He burst onto the scene with his bizarre 2006 comedy "The Pavillion Salamandre" and then most recently helmed the good but not great Osamu Dazai screen adaptation "Pandora's Box". That film made me kind of wonder where Tominaga's weirdness went. Well, it looks like it was channeled into his upcoming film "Ranbou to Taiki". Adapted from Yukiko Motoya's stage play of the same name (which was also turned into a graphic novel by Kazuya Tsurumaki) the film stars Tadanobu Asano as Hidenori and Minami as Nanase, two oddballs who while they're not brother and sister call each other brother and sister. Maybe some of their odd behaviour can be accounted for an accident they endured 10 years earlier... or maybe not. What we do know is that their fragile reality take a beating when Takao (Takayuki Yamada) and Azusa (Eiko Koike) show up and disturb their equilibrium. What follows seems to involve vomiting, peeing, and bikes crashing through plate glass windows. Oh, an Asano out doing Christian Bale and his funny Batman growl. See what I mean about Tominaga getting his weird groove back on? Plus he does it with a pretty damn impressive cast.

Nippon Cinema has the full theatrical trailer for what looks like a fun if twisted little comedy. Check it out here. "Ranbou to Taiki" is due out in Japanese theatres later this year.