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VIFF 2009 | Toad's Oil (Gama No Abura)
By VIFF Correspondent Fabiola CarlettiToad's Oil (Gama No Abura)
Japan, 2008, 131 mins
DIR: Yakusho Koji
Yazawa Takuro just lost 3 million dollars, and he's laughing hysterically.
This is where we meet our dominating protagonist - an eccentric stock-market day trader who repeatedly hollers "show me the money" and shoots BB guns around his palatial estates. Right away we see the difference between the quirky Yazawa and his smiling but relatively quiet son, Takuya.
Everything changes with the accident.
Somewhere between meeting with his girlfriend and reuniting with his childhood playmate, Takuya is hit by a car. As he lies in a coma, the boy finally piques his father's interest, luring the millionaire away from the loud blare of stock alerts.
But in learning about his son's life, Yazawa inadvertently takes it over. He finds himself spending all his time with Takuya's sulky friend Saburo--a big but gentle boy just released from reform school--and answering Takuya's phone to flirt with his chirpy and unsuspecting girlfriend Hikari.
Like Yazawa's stocks, the story fluctuates between fantastical highs and distressful lows, though both extremes are mostly set to up-beat medieval music and bright bubble-gum imagery. Still, the narrative slows after Takuya's cursory death and, in a 131-minute long movie, certain mystical scenes seem overextended and incidental.
Ultimately, the film feels like a coming-of-middle-age story in which an infantile millionaire must finally take ownership of his own life and let go of his son's. Although Yazawa's transformation is subtle, non-linear and arguably incomplete, those who love Koji Yakusho's acting will have plenty in which to indulge. The movie does have high production values, which affords many charming moments and colourfully exaggerated characters--just don't expect Toad's Oil to be a panacea.
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October 13, 2009 at 12:51 AM
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