One of the most recent trends in Asian cinema is the sci-fi/genre movies that follow a more art-house approach, not leaning exclusively on SFX, but also trying to develop the protagonist characters and make some comments in the process. Daiki Kobayashi directs such a film that focuses on superheroes, who are quite different from what we are used to up to now.
“Blue Collar Psychics” is screening at Skip City International D-Cinema Festival
One of these people is Shunsaku, a low-power psychic who is able to read and manipulate people’s memories, and is running an agency that solves people’s problems, along with a very beautiful young woman, Kaede. One day during a job, he stumbles upon a high schooler named Tasuku, who possesses much more powerful abilities than him, and asks him to cooperate with them. Their first job together is to follow a blind psychic named Tasuku, whose presence, though, complicates things intensely for everyone involved.
The main premise of the movie, the concept of manipulating memories, is a rather hard one to work with considering that it “demands” the presentation of different realities, in a way that remains coherent for the viewer. Although it is quite interesting, Daiki Kobayashi fails to depict it in a way that makes full sense, resulting in a movie that is very difficult to understand what is happening. The abrupt cuts, and the overall editing definitely do not help in this approach, as much as the presentation of the characters and episodes, whose plethora unnecessarily complicates things, while making it very difficult to empathize with anyone. The same applies to the mediocre work on the sound, while the (lack of) SFX is actually an issue here.
This does not mean that the movie is completely without benefits. The concept of bullying is quite intriguing in its occasionally brutal presentation, while the ending scenes and some action sequences are truly interesting to watch. The saturated colors and the overall visual presentation are quite pleasant to the eye, while the whole atmosphere of disorientation carries the movie for the majority of its 64 minutes. Furthermore, the whole idea of the failing super hero is an interesting one,even though it is not developed in the best fashion. Lastly, the acting, particularly from Chihisa Kato as Shunsaku and Yusuke Takahashi as the blind man, is on a rather high level, even if their characters are not that well-written.
On the other hand, some episodes and some comments, as in the case of the pregnancy and the abilities of some characters, are badly embedded in the narrative, essentially disconnected and without any particular purpose in the general story.
“Blue Collar Psychics” has its merits, particularly regarding its visuals, but in the end emerges as a lost opportunity considering the originality of its main theme, than anything else.
