Those who watched Mino's previous film, the jet black drama “Make The Devil Laugh” that threw its lead into the dark pitches of earthly hell, will be a bit taken aback by his new contender at PÖFF which strikes completely different tones. Instead of pathos, we get the lightness of a story made to entertain and not to tick off any of the ‘important film' boxes. “Ginji The Speculator”, Mino's first excursion into the Japanese period dram(a)edy, doesn't take itself seriously. It's airy, silly, experimental in costume- and set design, and it flirts with modern fashion and music.
The story is set in 1730, in Shiga Prefecture, where the rice exchange depends on the wind that blows from Osaka, a city that holds a monopolistic grasp on the trade, and determines prices in the entire province, effecting global prices in the country. One of the greatest traders in Otsu (a village near Kyoto), Mr. Darzeniya gets an unexpected reinforcement when he takes a young boy called Ginji as his aprentice. The same little boy will become a lightly awkward adult (Yu Uemura) who rarely parts from his abacus, and is capable of memorizing every single number in his head.
Early into the film, Ginji is just a farmer boy who's selling the family vegetables (daikon) on the local market. It is there he will meet his mentor Kihei and one of the real showmen. Kihei will improve the boy's life after his father suddenly dies, by sending him to the regional rice exchange at Otsu village.
A voiceover adds a bit of the third dimension to the story when it informs the viewer about the origins of the rice exchange, and that bit based on the historic facts is fascinating enough on its own. Finding out that the rice brokers of Osaka in the Edo period were the forerunners to a modern banking system sounds insane, but it is apparently true, or so the history books claim.
The above-mentioned history one-liner will be the only thing true to the facts in “Ginji The Speculator”. There is a bit of everything thrown on the bonfire of ideas: a bit of pop music, a pinch of humor, a piece of wild fabric, a suspense story and thankfully – no romance at all, just a few kimonos cut a bit deeper to win over the tea house customers. This mix gives the film a unique look, even if those components do not always work to the film's advantage. Selling reading glasses on the village's square would be one of those.
Ryotaro Kawaguchi's photography is one of the things that will stay with you, not because but despite of being old-fashioned. The soft tones will make the landscape alive among people busy with the trade, their faces lit with warmth. Worth mentioning is the youngest actor in the film who leaves the strongest impression. Unfortunately, I can not name him because of the information lost in translation. Praise also goes to the costume designer who will also stay unnamed for the same reason previously quoted. Their choice of fabrics is divine, and also when they don't hit the right historic period, they fit the image.
“Ginji The Speculator” is an easy watch that sometimes even gets funny. There is nothing really outstanding about it: not the photography, not the script, and not even the original music made for the film by Rio, but it will make you curious to watch it from the beginning to the end. This time Mino has a big chance of showing his film to a much larger audience, which was his goal from the start.
