I have seen this movie at the Berlinale Film Festival in Germany. For a European, it is always interesting and challenging to learn about Japan. The Japanese culture is so different from the European, so you generally cannot take anything for granted. In particular, this holds even more so for this movie.

It is about playing with the expectations and breaking assumptions, of any audience, constantly, no matter whether it is Japanese or European.

Some examples:

Can you expect to start up a rusty old car sitting in a swamp for years just by inserting a new battery?

Can you imagine a serial killer that is actually a nice boyish guy which acts as a guardian angel sometimes?

Would a mother leave her 3-year old child alone for a while to help some fugitive, to secretly install fireworks in the storm drains? And so on.

That is all what I want to say about the plot. The summary line and these examples must suffice. The absence of any certainties (regarding plot twists as well as underlying assumptions) makes it also bit confusing, but in a good way, though. Still, I think this complexity puzzled many spectators, and this is why there weren't many questions to the producers and the main actor after the festival screening.

Oftentimes in the movie something happens that seems to be completely predetermined, other events happen in a completely unpredictable and even absurd manner. The fact the movie walks on the fine line between determinism and haphazard, makes it also very profound. It is also a statement about the Japanese society and its people - and the many transformations it underwent in the last, say, 100 years. In this movie, most people have a positive attitude towards live and outcomes of their actions, even if bad things happen... murder, betrayal, treachery. Don't take it all too seriously.

I realize that I am trying to unravel the this movie. I have never seen anything like that before. Enjoyed it very much.

Golden Slumber is a conspiracy tale about an everyday guy framed for a political assassination. It is a portrait of nostalgia and friendship. It is a critique of modern Japan's lapdog media and uncritical consumer citizenry. It is also slyly comic.

Nakamura studs his cast design with rockabilly boys, b-list starlets, aging anarchists, and an avenging outlaw, sprawled over 139 minutes, in a narrative that strains but does not break. It is all pulled together in some wonderfully moving moments, as motifs such as fireworks, teachers' gold stars, and personal quirks such as pressing lift buttons with one's thumb recur and are given layered meaning. Great scenes abound - the father telling his son through a media frenzy to escape is both hilarious, and a powerful dig at Japan's lynch mob media.

Yûko Takeuchi as a loyal ex has never been better. Teruyuki Kagawa is his usual reliable self, oozing menace. Masato Sakai leads the line as the naive Masaharu Aoyagi, the fall guy who learns to grow a pair as his troubles pile up. His expressions, both pure and embittered, reveal an actor who knows acting is reacting. The comedy is entertaining, but the emotional punch is perhaps surprising given the significant shift in tone it requires.

A clever, engaging script that holds you all the way. Highly recommended.

Gotta give this one points for originality.

A none-too-bright (at least at the beginning) fellow is set up as the fall guy in a plot to assassinate the Japanese prime minister. He manages to elude capture through chance, and friends who help him, and sheer luck...again, and again, and...againandagainandagain....

Normally I don't watch this kind of flic, although I found myself thinking "but I watched Skyfall just last week...." But there is some great humor here, especially if you have some familiarity with Japanese culture (not all of the gags translate well). The "Death to Gropers!!" line in particular is ROFL funny...given all the sunny slogans that typically are written by Japanese kids in calligraphy class.

I did find myself cringing the third or fourth time a character sang the Beatles' standard "Golden Slumber", typically out of tune. Have the remote ready, and don't be afraid to hammer that fast-forward button.

You might like this if you can ignore the extreme implausibility of eg. your typical James Bond movie, and enjoy intermittent humor, and unexpected twists.