Movielogr

Rating: 8 stars

Tags

Music Box based on a true story Japan Japanese tokyo Minnesota

All movies seen on 03/28/2015

View on: IMDb | TMDb

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2014)

Directed by David Zellner

Drama

Most recently watched by lordofthemovies, schofizzy, sensoria, noahphex

Overview

Frustrated with her mundane life, a Tokyo office worker becomes obsessed with a fictional movie that she mistakes for a documentary. Fixating on a scene where stolen cash is buried in North Dakota, she travels to America to find it.

Length 104 minutes

Actors

Rinko Kikuchi | Nobuyuki Katsube | Kanako Higashi | Ichi Kyokaku | Ayaka Onishi | Mayuko Kawakita | Asami Tano | Ako Yoshida | Anna Wakamori | Risa Hotta | Hitomi Sawano | Maki Issô | Ariei Umefune | Takao Kinoshita | Shirley Venard | David Zellner | Nathan Zellner | Yumiko Hioki | Tetsuya Hayakawa | Mihoka Tomoda | Yusei Fujii | Natsuki Kanno | Brad Prather | Earl Milton | Madde Gibba | Ravi Jasthi | Lucy Luu | Kirsten Gregerson | Joel Thingvall

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

Been wanting to see this since it debuted at Sundance last year (followed by SXSW). Definitely lives up to the expectations despite really not knowing how it would play it beyond the known story. Having seen it in theater @ MBT I can honestly say that I’d prefer to view this at home. Or in an empty theater. I’ve developed an aversion to viewing Japanese movies with an American audience. Maybe it’s me but I feel that various cultural nuances are completely lost on the audience. Things that are not humorous receive laughs simply because they are different or misunderstood.

Could be the intent of the Zellner brothers to bring forth these differences for comedic purposes. Hard to say but I felt that they did a very good job in depicting things the same way a Japanese director would. That’s not to say that there aren’t funny moments because those exist here. However, the movie is quite unsettling for a number of reasons.

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