Summer Time Machine Blues (2005) User Reviews

Mindbending, hidden gem

[diaphanous19 · 8/10 · 2 October 2013]

If you're looking for a fun movie that will make you think a little, this is the movie for you. Reasons I can think of for watching this movie:

1) Cool storyline. Anyone who likes time travel movies will like this movie. 2) Chemistry between the cast is simply amazing. 3) It's funny yet logical.

Do not be put off by the lack of ratings/reviews. They really ought to put up a poster on IMDb for this movie. The lack of a movie poster is probably why this film is relatively unknown.

As one user already said, this is a movie you will not forget for a long time!

A comedy that you will remember for long

[galaxygirl2810 · 8/10 · 30 May 2008]

I think the cast was excellent. This film pictures a peaceful life of a group of students but the story was smart in a way.

People might easily get put off by the title of "Time machine" because most of the time machine movies were not good enough. However, the story in this movie is very different, the time machine naturally comes into to it without making us puzzled for long.

I personally like Ueno Juri and Eita. Although there is no particular main character that the camera focus on in the movie, I think they still shined in the movie. If you like them Ueno and Eita too, I would like to suggest the Japanese TV series: Nodame Cantabile - an extremely entertaining series about a group of students who have passion for music.

Another thing I like about Japanese movies is that there's always something surprising at the end and so did this movie.

After watching this movie, I've decided to keep it in my collection because there is a high possibility that I will watch it again.

I loved it

[mister_bateman · 8/10 · 1 July 2019]

This is the funniest time travel movie I've ever seen. There are no big special effects, it's just a couple of bored japanese school kids during a hot summer day at their sci-fi club faced with the tragic loss of their only little bit of relief from the heat: the remote controller for their AC unit, destroyed after spilling Coke on it. But thankfully, out of thin air, a time machine appears...

Great style, horrendously simple plot and way too much exposition

[org1andrew · 6/10 · 16 August 2018]

This movie is worth watching, but you have to remember it's meant for teenagers who probably haven't been exposed to too many films about time travel. If you've watched your fair share of films, this movie will come off as overly simplistic. Exposition is quite common in Japanese films, but it did not work favourably here. The male characters actually reminded me a bit of the film Idiocracy. In any case, I laughed out loud a few times and most people here seem to like it. I'm a voice of dissent.

Finally, a time travel movie that makes sense! (well, sort of...)

[ashrin90 · 9/10 · 26 June 2006]

A movie about a bunch of Japanese geeks spending their summer at their sci-fi club. As the day goes on, weird things that don't make sense start to happen: things go missing, jokes and conversations that don't make any sense, etc... Then things get really weird when a time machine suddenly appears in their club and from there on it becomes a series of misadventures for these geeks.

Overall this is an excellent comedy/sci-fi movie. The movie proclaims a certain logic when it comes to time travel (ala Back to The Future) and most of the time it does not stray from this logic. The fact that this is accomplished without it turning into a lengthy physics lecture is a great bonus. In fact, the semi-satirical explanation of time travel in this movie is the funniest part of it all.

There are a few familiar faces in this movie such as Juri Ueno from Swing Girls and Yoko Maki from The Grudge. In fact, the overall acting by all of the young but talented cast is superb.

This is definitely one of those movies which has to be seen twice in order for you to connect all the little pieces. No doubt about it, it's a perfect summer flick.

Warm and funny

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 19 November 2023]

I've already seen one low budget and quirky Japanese time travel comedy in the form of BEYOND THE INFINITE TWO MINUTES, which I loved, so I knew what to expect with this one. SUMMER TIME MACHINE BLUES takes a while to get going; the early 'ordinary world' scenario feels a bit padded out and the acting isn't too hot at times, nor is the occasionally annoying direction (the heat effect being totally overused). Nonetheless once the main plot begins for real, this one picks up nicely. Like much low budget Japanese cinema, the director's love of his craft shines through, the cast give enthusiastic performances, and the time travel plot, while not huge, ties everything up very neatly. It's funny too, which helps considerably.

A fine line between stupid and clever

[rooprect · 9/10 · 17 October 2006]

As David St. Hubbins says in SPINAL TAP: "There's a fine line between stupid and clever." This movie treads that line shamelessly.

As far as time machine movies go, there's no such thing as a realistic plot. This film realizes that and takes us in the opposite direction--to the realm of utter stupidity. Oddly enough, this technique works like a charm. There's nothing about global domination, interstellar warfare or deadly viruses; these kids just use a time machine to try to fix their air conditioner. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE IT???

I interpret it as a good-natured slap in the face of all the pseudo-intellectual scifi films about the infamous "time space continuum" and the catastrophic (but always predictable) effects of meddling in the past. This movie makes no apologies. It dives boldly into the idiotic. And yet, it somehow comes out being more intellectual and airtight than all the rest.

Now a word about technique. Fantastic. Even though this was mostly a campy romp, I was blown away by the unique & creative camera style. How exactly does one depict two concurrent timelines? Answer: split screen! I loved it. And it was amazing how, through the subtle use of sound effects, camera angles and fades-to-black, the director set up a feeling of suspense & tension long before the action kicked in. I was glued to the screen from the first 5 minutes.

And who could overlook that adorable dog? Definitely this is a fun movie to watch. As I'm learning, modern Japanese comedy is the only way to go. Also check out the movies SWING GIRLS, KAMIKAZE GIRLS, CUTIE HONEY and my personal fave, UNIVERSITY OF LAUGHS if you want a taste of solid, artistic comedy from the land of the rising sun. I'm rating this an 8/10 which is very, very high on my scale. Enjoy!

***UPDATE THE NEXT DAY*** I just watched this movie again, and I've officially upped my rating to a 9/10. Folks, if you like philosophy & logic, you've got to see this movie TWICE. I haven't thought this deeply about a story since I read my last Tolstoy novel. Truly a philosophical masterpiece disgused as a goofy comedy!

Turn back time

[politic1983 · 6/10 · 6 July 2022]

Time travel is far from a fun and sexy activity. In fact, it's an endless set of rules that can't be broken in case you just so happen to destroy the world. As with the more recently scripted "Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes", Makoto Ueda's script for "Summer Time Machine Blues" focuses on the minute details of time travel and how every small act has big consequences.

A college sci-fi club spend a lost, hot summer trying to find a way to spend their days. Sharing their space with the two girls who make up the photography club, a slow-motion sequence of silly events results in a bottle of Coke drowning the air conditioning remote control. Disaster.

But, as luck would have it, a member of the sci-fi club from thirty years in the future arrives with a time machine to solve all their woes. Problem solved: they can travel back in time to stop the remote being broken. But no. Being a group of young men, sensible behaviour is not on the agenda, running around to create all kinds of mischief. This results in lots of back-n-forth in an attempt to right their wrongs in a real-life lesson of cause-and-effect.

Re-released by Third Window Films, this fits perfectly within their back catalogue of low budget, small-scale films that are understated, at times slow-paced and can maybe take a bit of time to get into; initially a little baffling and lacking much sense. But don't worry, all will be revealed to make it a clever script masquerading as a silly narrative, with even sillier supporting characters.

Ueda, a playwright by trade, has a preoccupation with time travel in his work, but mainly looking at its duller aspects. It is far from a cool adventure, but more an exercise in considering consequences of actions, forcing your behaviour in order to keep the timeline on course to avoid any paradoxes. There is, therefore, a mathematical approach to the script.

But to add relief, Ueda also knows how to make things fun, with the time machine put in the hands of young men who have no idea as to the power they possess. Rather than travel to the distant pass or future, they travel to the near past to try and prevent the remote control from being broken so they can enjoy the air conditioning. While not as clever and developed as "Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes", the starting points are there from the play adapted to a film.

Watching now, this feels something of a travel back through time itself. Katsuyuki Motohiro's direction feels very much of its time, with the action paused for 360-degree spins: a technique employed much at the time. But this action is very much tongue-in-cheek to add special effects to what is essentially a stage play, and gives it a light comic charm.

The cause-and-effect silliness make this a fun film made in the right spirit with the cast all on board, and Munenori Nagano stealing the show as the group's bottom feeder Atsushi. Focusing on the mundanities of something so enormous and complex also gives this that peculiar something unique to Japanese cinema in the new millennium. Quietly bemusing, making you not quite sure as to what you've just watched. If only you could go back a few minutes to re-watch...

politic1983.home.blog.

A Perfect Tale of Adventure and Devotion

[Annie_Mah · 10/10 · 13 August 2010]

This is such a fun film! I admit I'm a bit fan of time travel movies, and comedy movies, and this is both.

The movie starts out with some strange things, some of which I'm like "ah yes, this will get sorted out later" and other times I was like "did I really just see that?" Of course as the movie goes along everything gets explained.

I think this movie has it all to make it five stars in my books: comedy, fun storyline, likable characters, a bit of mystery that all comes together with no loose ties, and a little bit of romance. I highly recommend this film!

My favorite movie of all time

[keal · 10/10 · 15 November 2013]

It's pretty much a fact that if a movie has a lovable cast, everyone loves it. Even if it has gaping plot holes. Lovable cast comes first. This one has a lovable cast.

Any movie that has a compelling story usually gets the critics gushing. Kids using a time machine to recover an air conditioning remote control is questionable, but it is laid out from the beginning that this story is about that remote control. Good or bad, it's pretty balanced in my opinion. So we can rule out this element.

Film editing is the defining factor. Never have I seen, in all my life, a film with such a well thought-out filming strategy that utilized editing to create a puzzle of a movie. You watch it once, it's a fun comedy with lovable characters. Second viewing, you may notice the things in the background. Further viewings, you wonder just how hard did the film crew think to plan such an elaborate film? During the beginning baseball scene, you probably won't notice the background action. Second viewing, you probably will see some of it. Further viewing, you will realize how precise the filming was. Then it makes you wonder, how long did it take to actually set this all up? It's just amazing, because you don't find this level of background action in any other film in history, in any country, period. I'd be shocked if someone could point out, 'Oh, I have seen this technique in THIS movie.' I think this film, STMB, is singularly unique in its multi-layered storytelling, only appreciated in multiple viewings, that reveals the genius behind the scenes.

Sadly, this is probably the only film by this director that has this quality. I've watched many of his other films. It's nothing like this. Probably a fluke. But this is my all-time favorite film. Who cares if he never makes anything else like this? STMB is perfect.

For a casual mainstream viewer, this film is a fun comedy that's a little confusing, but in the end, they'll say it was funny. For the thinking person, this could come off as a silly sci-fi romp and nothing more. But for the real cinema buffs, this is a FEAST.

Filming and editing is top-notch. Multiple viewings will be rewarded. Pay attention to the background in the early scenes. Actors are young, but seasoned comedians, and it shows. You cannot help but love the characters. That's not a fluke. The actors have a lot of background before this film.

In the end, it's about a group of kids just wanting to keep cool in the summer. But the journey to get there is the best ride I have EVER seen on film. This trumps any of the old films like Casablanca, Citizen Kane and so on. It's up in the highest echelons of filmmaking. Why it's not in everyone's top 2 or 3 films of all time, is a mystery to me. This is my number one. Number two for me is Casablanca.

At any rate, it is worth your hard-earned money to get this movie. Even if it's not your favorite, I promise you won't regret buying it.

Highly recommended!

Watching paint dry might prove more entertaining...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 2 May 2020]

I stumbled upon this 2005 movie titled "Summer Time Machine Blues" (aka "Samâ taimu mashin burûsu") by sheer random luck. And with my fascination and interest in Asian cinema, of course I picked it up and gave it a chance.

Wow. Just wow! Talking about being a swing and a miss of a movie.

This movie was a complete mess and a wholehearted waste of time and effort. I have rarely seen a storyline like this, where writer Makoto Ueda and director Katsuyuki Motohiro stumble about tripping over themselves in order to make the movie interesting. It just was a scrambled pile of a mess of a storyline.

And it didn't help much to sell the movie that the characters were rather boring, mundane and pointless. It felt like the actors and actresses themselves weren't really fully investing themselves into the roles.

I managed to suffer through about many an hour of this movie, then I gave up, never to return to finish watching the rest of it.

My rating of "Summer Time Machine Blues" is a mere two out of ten stars. The thing lifting it up to two is the production value, and the insane amount of nods to nerds, geeks and pop culture that is to be seen in the scenes throughout the movie.

Forget the love of science--these kids just want their air conditioner back!

[wclifton · 9/10 · 14 July 2006]

I saw this movie on a flight from Taiwan to Indonesia about two and a half weeks ago (with subtitles), which is certainly not the best way to see a movie, but I found it interesting and that's why I'm writing this review.

It tells the story of a carefree group of seven Japanese college students whose air conditioner has broken, leaving their summer clubhouse to roast in the heat. Much to their surprise, a time machine (and its equally surprised pilot) appear one day in the clubhouse, and they decide to use it in order to prevent their air conditioner from ever breaking. Enter the reclusive physics professor, who explains to the kids just what changing the past could do: create a paradox, and destroy the universe. And so they embark on a desperate scramble to undo the changes they've made to the timeline.

Though undoubtedly made on a very low budget, the special effects are close to Hollywood- caliber and are used only as needed to advance the storyline. The time machine itself looks like a home-made imitation of the one in the 1967 version of The Time Machine, but so what? The storyline itself is one of the most intelligent (and surprisingly realistic) I've ever seen in a sci-fi film, going through a number of twists and turns without ever conflicting itself. My only complaint would be that it's occasionally a bit predictable, but overall, I found that it greatly improved my flight and is definitely worth checking out if you happen to run across it.

A summer treat

[danielatala8 · 10/10 · 3 October 2022]

Summer Time Machine Blues is not a masterpiece but it sure feels like one to me! It's just one of those movies that you watch with a smile during the whole movie because it's just so much lighthearted fun! And to me that deserves to be called a masterpiece, from the same writer of equally amazing time travel film "Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes" Summer Time Machine Blues feels almost like a fun prelude to it- or perhaps even in the same universe?

In the movie we follow a group of friends that run a sci fi club at school who one day after their air condition stops working (this is an important plot point I promise!) they stumble upon a Time Machine and a strange guy from the future, crazy Time Machine antics ensue! At first you kind of feel that the movie presents the beginning in a very nonsensical way, at first I thought it was because the subtitling or the presentation was a bit unclear but trust me, you'll get explanations for everything during the movie- and it is so satisfying to see everything sort of unravelling as the plot goes along. The humour is fun as well, it feels like a very light version to the American movie "Superbad" and that's awesome!

The actors are fun and great, it's awesome to see Juri Ueno from Swing Girls- and you even see some familiar faces from Makoto Ueda's movie "Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes". The movie is also shot in a very 00's Japanese style which I love, with lots of colours in the presentation, oversaturated greens- you'll understand when you see lots of Japanese movies from the 90s/00s, and I love it!

A few negatives that this movie has is that some of the characters can be very annoying and do really nonsensical decisions but in the context of the plot you understand why and they become better as the film goes along!

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, very nostalgic and has that sort of vibe and fun that 00s movies had back then! Check it out! And even better it's available on Blu-Ray if you want to have it at home!

Quirky; Cool and Fun

[t-d-t-m82 · 8/10 · 14 September 2023]

Finally getting the opportunity to view this film on the legendary cult label Third Windows Films outta the UK.

It's got so much slapstick humour. It's got time-travelling. It's got inquisitive but not-very-bright College kids. It's got bags of fun and creativity and it's just sheer entertainment.

The script is nailed. It's not intending to be a technical futuristic film with a huge budget. It's got a tiny budget for a Sci-fi genre film and the Direction and special fx for the period are perfect.

Dialogue is free-flowing and very much centricated on the main college friends and their new-found time-travelling friend who mysteriously appears from the future!

They obsess over the remote control after losing it in an accident. The friends decide that the only way to bring it back would be a time machine. Low and behold their wish comes true!

From then it's a catalogue of time zones and continuum issues. The research done by the writer before is fabulous. It's logical and it ties-in. It's just so damn fresh and fun. It's not heavy and it's extremely light-hearted.

For a low-budget flick of the era it's aged incredibly well too. It doesn't need endless CGI as it has an exceptionally strong storyline. I really loved it and will be watching 'Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes' by the same creator very soon. Amazing job!

Super entertaining

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 8/10 · 25 April 2024]

This is a must-watch for anyone who liked the more recent Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, because it scratches the same itch as a scrappy yet charming Japanese time-travel comedy. They're both different enough to work independently too, of course, with Summer Time Machine Blues having a bit of a wider scope, and also being a film that takes its time setting things up a little more than that 2020 release.

It did this to the point where the first half-hour or so was almost a little dull, because the time travel stuff doesn't really get introduced until the start of the second act. But then it becomes apparent that the slower opening act was necessary to set up much of the humour found throughout the rest of the film, and in that way, it reminded me a bit of the baffling yet necessary opening act of One Cut of the Dead.

Comparing it to those just because they came to mind while watching, I don't think Summer Time Machine Blues is quite as good as either One Cut of the Dead or Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, but it was entertaining and charming in similar ways. It's a light and consistently fun film that has a cool approach to time travel, striking just the right balance between having genuine stakes (to some extent) and just being silly and plenty of fun. I ended up liking it quite a lot.