Ugh
I don't mind slow films. I like Kiyoshi. I was really looking forward to this, after seeing Pulse, Seance, Cure, Doppelganger, Retribution, Charisma, and Loft.
Those who say this movie is enigmatic, disturbing, foils 'Western' aesthetic sensibilities, replete with Fellinian/Bunuelian/Lynchian influences/inspirations/references...you're so full of sh*t.
This movie is nothing more than a single, sterile, heavy-handed, patent-obvious symbolic device set to periodic campy music, prodded along by a sh*t script.
As I said, I like Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Honestly though, not a master. Wouldn't even say 'great'. But I do think he has a unique viewpoint, and he shoots certain things in a very interesting way. With his more 'supernatural' fares at least there was that entertaining arthouse-horror appeal - but this one, simply STINKS.
Why would anyone want to watch a couple of poorly drawn schizoid Japanteens with 'crazy hair' trying to stare at a jellyfish for 90+ minutes? Getting me to dislike Asano Tadanobu is a feat, but this film managed to make me want to just clutch and shake him like a hydrocephalic baby. Anyone *not* getting the 'message' here can't possibly be filmschool dropouts, because they most likely never even passed 10th-grade English (oooohhh, symbolism...). In all seriousness, I think Kurosawa didn't go *nearly* as far as he could with this one, and failed in *all* respects.
I suspect a film like this will still draw in the self-identified global consumerist 'sophistiques' though, as it does have that rancid Haruki-Murakamiesque je-ne-sais-quoi going for it.
Please, people, educate yourselves, and skip this exercise in banality called Bright Future.