Spike Jonze may have a monopoly on the tropes associated with neurotic loners in the throes of surreal existential crises, but Japanese director Miki Satoshi ("Adrift in Tokyo") does justice to Jonze's motif. The increasingly bizarre setup -- in which a man accidentally creates multiple versions of himself that populate the world beyond his control -- immediately calls to mind the identity issues of "Being John Malkovich." But where that movie at least adheres to its own internal logic, Miki's adaptation of Tomoyuki Hoshino's novel is ostensibly trapped in the turmoil of its leading man from start to finish, unfurling his confusing situation as if were a shaggy dog detective story akin to "The Big Lebowski." Like those precedents, Satoshi's curiously entertaining character study feels oddly familiar and unpredictable, often at the same time. Kazuya Kamenashi (the frontman for the Japanese pop group Kat-tun) allegedly takes on 33 roles over the course of "It's Me,...
- 11/4/2013
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Today it was announced that Satoshi Miki (Adrift in Tokyo, Instant Swamp) is working on a new movie called It’s Me, It’s Me (Ore-Ore), and Kazuya Kamenashi of the pop band Kat-tun is set to star.
Miki based the screenplay on a novel by Tomoyuki Hoshino about the nature of identity which won the 5th Kenzaburō Ōe prize for literature in 2011.
The story involves a popular scam in Japan called “ore-ore sagi” in which the scammer calls up unsuspecting people (typically the elderly) and pretends to be someone they know, asking for money for an emergency or whatever urgent reason they can come up with.
In the film, the protagonist gets bored with his mundane life so he tries out the “It’s me” fraud. In a surreal twist, he keeps meeting different "me"s after that—literally all different versions of himself—and they continue to multiply.
Miki based the screenplay on a novel by Tomoyuki Hoshino about the nature of identity which won the 5th Kenzaburō Ōe prize for literature in 2011.
The story involves a popular scam in Japan called “ore-ore sagi” in which the scammer calls up unsuspecting people (typically the elderly) and pretends to be someone they know, asking for money for an emergency or whatever urgent reason they can come up with.
In the film, the protagonist gets bored with his mundane life so he tries out the “It’s me” fraud. In a surreal twist, he keeps meeting different "me"s after that—literally all different versions of himself—and they continue to multiply.
- 5/3/2012
- Nippon Cinema
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