Review for Fish Story

Introduction

Can a punk song save the world?

More importantly, can you make a movie about a punk song that saves the world? Apparently director Yoshihiro Nakamura can and did, adapting the novel by Kotaro Isaka to the screen. It's the sort of story idea that can either sink or swim, and it's also the sort of story idea that you can't envisage a major studio investing in. But it is the sort of movie that is ideally suited to independent and fringe cinema, and of late the sort of movie that Japanese cinema excels in. If the recent releases by Third Window Films on UK DVD are anything to go by, we ought to be in for a treat with their July title, Fish Story.

In 2012, the city is deserted, a comet burns brightly overhead, and the world has just five hours left until it is destroyed. But in these ghost town streets, there is still music, for one shop remains open, a record shop from which can be heard the sounds of a forty-year-old punk record, Fish Story, a song which legend says can save the world.


In 1975, Gekirin is a band before its time, bringing punk to an uncaring world a year before the Sex Pistols actually managed it. Gekirin may have the record contract, they may get to perform live, but other than their manager, no one appreciates their music, and no one buys their records. On the verge of breaking up as a band, they have just one song left in them, Fish Story, although recording it may be an insurmountable challenge in itself.

1982, and a timid young guy has been roped into driving his friends to a date, a couple of obnoxious guys who insist on listening to songs with spooky legends attached to them, regardless of the effect they have on their driver. One song, Fish Story has an unexplained silence in the middle, but if you listen closely, you might just hear the sound of a woman's scream…


For one young girl, a school trip in 2009 goes from bad to worse when she falls asleep on a ferry and forgets to wake up at her stop. Now irrevocably bound for Hokkaido, she's inconsolable, until she meets a young pastry chef who works on board. If her life is bad, his is worse. His parents have raised him to be a Champion of Justice. What is a champion of justice anyway? But like I said, bad to worse, for the ferry is about to be hijacked.

That one song somehow ties these stories together, and may just be the key to saving the world.

The Disc

Fish Story gets a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. It's an NTSC-PAL standards conversion, but an exceptionally good one at that. The film is a little soft, but ghosting is minimal while judder is practically absent during pans and scrolls. You'll have to pause, and frame advance a bit before you find signs of interlacing. The film has a nice, realistic look to it, accurately capturing the periods of its stories, and CGI, when applies is done subtly enough to be invisible, except for that honking great comet in the sky. Audio comes in DD 2.0 Japanese, with optional English subtitles. The dialogue is clear, and the film gets a little ambience and expanse through the stereo, but with the punk soundtrack and the odd action scene, 5.1 would have been preferable. This film could have fallen down if the music weren't up to scratch, but punk band Gekirin earn their stripes in this film.

Extras

As well as the theatrical trailer, and the usual raft of 18 Third Window trailers, Fish Story also gets a decent making of documentary, running to a total of 35 minutes. You get little snippets of each time period being filmed, but there is a good amount focusing on the punk band at the heart of the movie, Gekirin. It's interesting to see that the four actors, with some musical experience, came together and essentially became the band, sharpened their skills, rehearsed, recorded the songs, and even performed. It's usually more than you'd expect for a feature film, and certainly adds verisimilitude to their performances in the film. The extras are topped off with a live performance (9 minutes) from Gekirin at Tower Records in Shibuya in 2009.

Conclusion

A comet hanging in the sky, the Earth just five hours away from destruction and the imminent extinction of the human race. You're thinking Bruce Willis and Michael Bay aren't you? You're not the only one, as one of the characters wonders if the be-vested one isn't on a mission to save the Earth as the comet comes bearing down upon them. But Fish Story isn't Armageddon, it's a brilliantly crafted little movie, a confusion of stories, entangling and intertwining, offering little hints and glimpses of the whole, but leaving the revelations for the final reel. If you are a fan of fractured narratives and non-linear storytelling like Pulp Fiction and Memento, then Fish Story will be right up your street, only Fish Story is more of a wry comedy than a thriller, replete with quirky characters and slightly absurd situations.


Of course this would be the worst place for me to start talking about the plot. This is the kind of film that appreciates spoilers the least, and the last thing that you'd want to know is how the stories tie together. But what's charming about Fish Story is that the four time periods that it visits, the four stories that it tells are in essence four different genre films. The 2012 setting is potentially one of those disaster movies, full of effects and loud noises, but turns out to be something a lot smaller and intimate, as practically the only three people remaining in the city gather at a record shop awaiting the final moment. The record shop owner wants to play this rare, practically legendary punk record for his only customer, when into the shop walks a man who, having foreseen the day of doom, has spent his final years racking up a debt, living a life of hedonistic indulgence. He's curious as to why the music shop is open, and as the three listen to the record, their conversation becomes a philosophical debate between fatalistic acceptance, and desperate hope in the face of certain doom.


Nothing quite so weighty as an imminent apocalypse back in 1975, but perhaps it has the same philosophical argument at its core, with Gekirin a punk band before the punk movement hit, faced with the imminent dissolution of their band, yet recording one final anthemic pop song in defiance of that fate. It's more of a slice of life tale, four individuals trying to hold onto their punk identity, in the face of increasing pressure to conform, from society and from their record label. It doesn't help that they are afflicted by those creative differences that sunder so many bands, and it becomes a question of which will end the band first.


The 1982 tale of the timid driver and his obnoxious friends is more of a ghost story, with the legend of a woman's scream hidden in the silence in a song having an effect on the young college student. That's only the start, as he later meets a girl with a psychic gift, who sees him and issues forth a prophecy, one that can only come true if he can ditch his timid nature. The night is about to get even more bizarre. Finally there is the schoolgirl who falls asleep on a ferry in 2009 and winds up sailing away from her destination. A young pastry chef tries to cheer her up, when a group of cultists hijack the ferry. This is the action movie section of the anthology, an obvious nod to Under Siege and all the other Die Hard variants.


The thing is that all these threads intertwine to create a really quirky and delightful tapestry, with wit and humour, as well as an exceptional cast. The music is catchy of course, the spookiness is palpable during the young driver's adventure, and the action during the hijack is really well choreographed and directed. Even better, it's definitely more than the sum of its parts. I enjoyed Fish Story tremendously, lost myself in its charms for a couple of hours, and felt all the better for investing my time in it. All apocalyptic disaster movies should be this good. As to whether punk can save the world… You'll have to watch it to find out.