What if you could start over, change your identity and lead a completely different life? What different choices would you make, and could you really escape your past? These are some of the questions at the heart of “Key of life”, a philosophically minded Japanese comedy that is, for the most part, touching and thoughtful.
Key of Life is streaming on JFF Theater until 2025/02/01 11:00:00 [JST]
Junitsu Kondo and Takeshi Sakurai could not be more opposed human beings. Kondo is a ruthless, cold killer for hire who leads a high-flying lifestyle. Sakurai is a jobless, penniless actor who cannot achieve anything, even his own suicide. Fate makes them cross paths in a sento as Kondo slips on a bar of soap, hits his head on the floor and becomes totally amnesiac. Sensing an opportunity, the wily Sakurai swaps his belongings with Kondo’s and steals his identity, setting wild events in motion.
This is only the beginning of a rollercoaster of a story with many twists and turns, as Sakurai settles in Kondo’s life but starts realizing the truth about the man he is pretending to be. Meanwhile, the formerly ruthless Kondo, now a changed man, discovers Sakurai’s life and quietly learns to appreciate its simplicity. Would he even want to get his old life back if he could remember who he really is?
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“Key of Life” requires audiences to suspend their disbelief very, very high to enjoy the movie, as next to nothing is believable in Kondo’s and Sakurai’s misadventures. It would probably be easier to accept the film’s far-fetched plot twists if it were more frankly a comedy and allowed you to laugh its improbabilities away. Yet the film, which certainly does feel like a slapstick comedy at many points, also includes more serious and dramatic elements in its story that pull it away from all-out burlesque.
This is both the film’s strength and its chief weakness. On the one hand, “Key of Life” is a thoughtful tale about redemption and new starts, a feel-good movie with something to say about the choices we make and lifestyles we adopt. On the other hand, you have to roll your eyes at a story that relies overmuch on a straightforward criminal subplot that does not bring as much to the film as it should. Instead, it takes valuable screen time away from more interesting plot points, especially in the second half.
Among the undercooked storylines is Kanae Mizushima’s, on whom the film actually opens. Mizushima is a dedicated, highly organized executive who has announced to her employees and family that she would get married in two months’ time – without even having met a man yet. She crosses paths with the amnesiac Kondo, and soon the two fall in love, bonding over their mutual perfectionist mindsets and slightly obsessive-compulsive personalities. There is something touching and cute about the duo, and it is a shame the story does not devote more time to their budding relationship, or to Mizushima as a character in her own right. There is a vague sense that she changes over the course of the story, and we do get insights into her own life and family issues, but her character’s journey is much less clearly developed than Sakurai’s and Kondo’s.
Another interesting plot point has to do with Sakurai being an actor (the joke is that he is supposedly a method actor even though he totally lacks actual method in life, while the word itself is included in the original Japanese title). Trying to fit in with his new life, Kondo tries acting and realizes there is something fascinating about pretending to be someone else, while Sakurai does his best to impersonate a professional assassin. Here the film is on the verge of drawing a parallel with the idea that life is a stage and we are free to redefine ourselves, but unfortunately it never explores that storyline further.
Such concerns over acting highlight how strong the cast is, starting with the always excellent Teruyuki Kagawa as Kondo. Kagawa shines as he is given a golden opportunity to show off his acting skills by playing two radically different personalities. Ryoko Hirosue as the determined but slightly off kilter Mizushima and Masato Sakai as the bumbling but highly lovable Sakurai also strengthen a film that is all about playing parts.
The formula, which somewhat recalls the classic Hollywood film “Trading Places”, proved successful enough that “Key of Life” has been remade twice already. First in South Korea as “Luck-Key” in 2016, then in China in 2021 as “Endgame” (where Andy Lau plays the Kondo character). This makes sense for a film that is all about remaking our own lives to find our better selves and where some characters are literally actors in front of cameras. It highlights the vast potential behind a screenplay which received several awards at the time of the film’s release.
