Header image  
Japanese Film Collection  
 
    home
 

Dead End Run

 

 

Directed by Sogo Ishii

Japan 2003 / Action / 59 min / Color / Dolby 5.1 / 1.85: 1 Ratio  Anamorphic Widescreen / NTSC /  In Japanese with Optional Thai - English Subtitles

Yusuke Iseya, Masatoshi Nagase, Tadanobu Asano , Urara Awata , Mikako Ichikawa , Jun Kunimura ,Yoji Tanaka, Ken Mitsuishi .

Cult filmmaker Sogo Ishii's follow-up to his spectacular "Electric Dragon 80,000 V" consists of three short films. Continuing on the road he had taken, Ishii throws every trick in the book at us; rapid cuts, bouncing cameras, fast close-ups, wacky angles, vibrating zooms, and quick dissolves turn out a triumphant display of knockout visuals. All three stories deal with a "running man" who ends up in a dead-end alley. In the first part, a man is pursued by a woman who turns out to be "more than human." Part two stars Masatoshi Nagase ("Electric Dragon 80,000 V," "Party 7") as the man who is driven into the dead-end alley by a hitman. In part three, Tadanobu Asano (also from "Electric Dragon 80,000 V," "Party 7") is chased by the police, and ends up on a rooftop where he kidnaps a woman who was there to commit suicide. As usual, Ishii's technique combines breathless action scenes with the hard-edged feel of the experimental film.