Last year, with “Dosuemon”, Shingo Kanemoto gave us one of the worst Japanese movies of all time, not only for its lack of any kind of cinematic value, but also due to the offensive comments on raping, beating and stealing (from the elderly). Surprisingly, this year, he came up with a new one, which may not be as offensive as the previous one, but is definitely as amateurish.
I've Died a Lot Lately is screening at Japan Filmfest Hamburg
Satoko Sato is a 32 years old woman, who after her grandmother's death from Covid (in a blood vomiting scene indicative of what is about to follow), she has quit everything in life, including her job, and is just living in her parents' house in Nara. Her parents try to make her search for a job, but she is having none of it, instead staying in her rather colorful room, and shooting videos for YouTube of her playing dead or indulging in any kind of activities to pass time. Eventually, and after ending up in the room of a fortune teller, she decides to become a monk, but her training is not exactly ideal as she keeps failing, despite the fact that she has shaved her head.
Evidently, there is very little, if any coherence in Shingo Kanemoto's film, which essentially comprises a collage of bad ideas executed in even worse fashion. The comment about the post-Covid depression seems to be the central idea, and maybe that religion can be a solace, but even if these remarks are actually here on purpose, they are lost in the amateurish absurdity of the narrative.
Even worse is the overall acting, with Sari Tachibana being rather hyperbolic in most of her delivery, and the rest of the actors looking like they were just picked from a crowd, and have very little to do with cinema at all. Maybe an exception could be made for Rikiya Kaido as the monk, and the old lady in the end, but barely.
The cinematography is non-existent, the editing just helps in jumping from one disconnected scene to another in a way that even the 64 minutes of the movie's duration seem too long, and the sound has a number of issues, but not as many as the various FX (I would not call them special) in a production that is evidently of the no-budget variety.
What remains in the end is the passable job in set design, with Satoko's room, a painting of the sea and sky as background and the strawberry tapestry being pleasant to the eye.
That is all there is however, with the only good thing one could say about “I've Died a Lot Lately” is that is better than “Dosuemon”
