Have you ever felt life is beyond your control? Operating somewhere between knowing wink and madness, Japanese writer/director Sabu suggests there’s a good reason for this in his madcap comedy Chasuke’s Journey. Taking a high concept idea, he delivers a witty, gruesome lesson in seizing your own destiny.
Shooting with a soft focus, Chasuke (Ken’ichi Matsuyama) is a humble tea server working for God. He makes sure the screenwriters are kept well-hydrated as they go about their business that involves writing the lives of everyone on earth. And those lives better be interesting. Sick and tired of mundane stories, God demands the avant-garde. The cost is the death of Yuri (Ito Ohno), a harmless young woman who gets mixed up in another screenwriter’s effort to keep the boss happy. It falls to Chasuke to head to earth and prevent her death.
All the madness that ensues is just an excuse for Sabu to point out we can all choose our own future. With the aid of Taneda (Ren Ohsugi) and Joe (Yusuke Iseya), two people written into his story by friendly screenwriters, Chasuke sets about saving Yuri. Life on earth proves both seductive and appalling, and he ends up battling gangsters, healing the masses with the magical powers brought down from above, and struggling to keep Yuri alive.
Mixing slapstick comedy with a wry take on religion, Sabu maintains the good times far beyond the limits set by his absurd premise. Chasuke can go from saving someone’s life to vomiting all over himself in seconds. The following conversation debates whether vomit from an angel counts as barf or balm. When each new character is introduced, an extended montage zips through their biography. Joe for example had ten homeless fathers and a romance that went wrong when his lover drowned in circumstances suspiciously like those of Titanic (1997). Using the opportunity to rail against hackneyed writing, Chasuke corrects the work of cruel and lazy screenwriters aping films.
It’s not all bright lights and roses. Chasuke’s darker past returns, sending him into spasms of violence to protect those he loves. When a mob boss pulls a knife on him, he uses his powers to compel him to chop his own fingers off. When riled, a whole gang find themselves spewing blood.
The simplicity of Sabu’s message, and the speed with which he tells it count against the film in the second half. Stuck down on earth healing the poor wretches punished arbitrarily by mediocre screenwriters, the plot starts to run out of momentum. A holding pattern sets in whereby threats emerge and are dealt with easily. The final resolution feels a little too much like it came from one of God’s screenwriters, complete with a further message about choosing our destiny.
Ultimately, Chasuke’s Journey becomes a concept that’s run its course. The ending merely halts the action, rather than satisfactorily concluding it. Until then, it’s a delightfully tongue-in cheek romp that offers enough entertainment to coast past the weak finale.
Director: SABU (as Hiroyuki Tanaka)
Writers: SABU (based on the novel by), SABU (screenplay)
Stars: Ken’ichi Matsuyama, Ito Ohno, Ren Ôsugi
Country: Japan
Film Rating: 
