Review: Last Life in the Universe

By kevin on August 04, 2006 at 8:47am EDT

I went into Last Life in the Universe not knowing anything about the plot whatsoever. All I knew was that reading the cast list and seeing names like Riki Takeuchi, Yutaka Matsushige, Takashi Miike, and Tadanobu Asano made me assume I’d like it regardless of what it was about. That’s just about as bad as reasoning can possibly get for watching any movie, but in the end it helped me stumble into something really different from anything I’ve seen before. It’s the kind of film that sticks with you for days afterward for one reason or another. There are so many blanks left for the audience to fill in that in the few years since its release it has becomes sort of the Mad Libs of the Asian cinema message boards and forums around the web. Everyone seems to become so convinced of their own interpretations of certain scenes that they actually feel the need to defend them even when there are multiple completely valid ways to see the same thing. I do have some of my own theories, and some things I just flat-out choose to believe to be true in regards to those ambiguous scenes but I honestly believe it’s something best left up to the individual than for me to post in a review. With that in mind I’ll try my best not to interject too much specific analysis of scenes that are open to interpretation.

Originally from Osaka, Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) is now living in an apartment in Bangkok Thailand. The film begins with him about to attempt suicide by hanging himself when he’s interrupted by someone incessantly buzzing his door. It’s his brother Yukio (Yutaka Matsushige), a brash Yakuza who had to flee from Japan recently for taking liberties with the boss’ daughter. Not really one to put up a fuss, Kenji lets Yukio stay at his place for a while. Kenji suffers from a severe obsessive compulsive disorder in that he feels strongly compelled to keep everything neat and organized, a trait that helps him fit right in at his job at a local library. One day while working he becomes mesmerized with a girl standing behind one of the shelves browsing through a Japanese children’s book. In brief moment she’s gone and he’s left with nothing but the book she was looking at, a children’s book called “The Last Lizard” in which a lizard wakes up to find he’s the last lizard on earth and eventually decides that it’s even better to be with your enemies than with no one at all. Kenji identifies with the book and sets out to take yet another shot at suicide by jumping off a bridge. In a strange twist of fate his suicide attempt is once again interrupted (a reoccurring theme throughout the film), this time by the very girl he had seen at the library earlier, Nid (Laila Boonyasak). It seems that her sister Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) had just kicked her out of her car in the midst of an argument. For a brief moment Kenji and Nid lock eyes and startlingly she’s suddenly hit by a car. The film flashes forward to Kenji sitting in the hospital with Noi for a while and then going home to his apartment.

It seems that a Yakuza by the name of Takashi (Riki Takeuchi) has come to visit Kenji’s brother. It isn’t long before it becomes evident that he was actually sent by the boss to kill Yukio and in a strange sequence of events Kenji ends up the sole survivor of the fracas. Seemingly unshaken by all this he gets to work meticulously cleaning up the scene and goes to work the next day as if nothing had happened. While there Noi visits with a bag he had left with her by mistake. The two of them end up going to dinner together and not wanting to go back to his apartment for obvious reasons he asks to visit her home. She lets him and the two seem to mesh well after a bumpy start the first day. Every time she mentions anything about him going home he bluntly asks to stay longer. Partly because she doesn’t want to be alone and partly because she’s moving to Osaka to start a new life on Monday, she has no qualms with the situation.

What follows is the progression of these two characters and their relationship with each other. All the stereotypical odd couple scenarios apply here. He’s reserved, she’s brash. He’s meticulous and neat, she’s a complete and utter slob. I really feel I should make it clear though that this is by no means a romantic comedy, and even though I’ve seen it described as such several times I have to flat out disagree. Most of the humor in this film comes from the characters along the periphery, such as Takashi Miike hamming it up in his role as the yakuza boss, or Yutaka Matsushige telling Riki Takeuchi “You’ve seen too many yakuza movies”, drawing a wry glance. In contrast, the scenes between Kenji and Noi are only funny in the way that life itself can be funny sometimes in the face of tragedy. Here we have two damaged souls coming together not because they particularly want to, but because they need each other at this point of their lives. It becomes more evident over time that instead of just being a plot device to make Kenji’s character seem quirky, his obsessive-compulsive disorder is more like a crippling illness and was probably a main factor in him wanting to commit suicide in the first place. There are also hints of a sordid past that never quite gets explained. In fact both of the characters’ lives are left largely unexplained, forcing the audience to always focus on what’s important at that moment and not the original causes leading up to it.

The effect on the mood of the film by the synthesized musical score can’t be overstated. It manages to be somber and sedated without being stark. The way it weaves throughout scenes is sometimes hypnotic. This is also true of the cinematography—though it could be argued some camera work is just way over the top and can cause more meaning of certain things than was intended. However, it does set a mood and ambiance that couldn’t have been attained any other way than with a flair for the overdramatic bordering on pretentiousness but never quite crossing that line.

“Last Life in the Universe” is one of those films that haunts you for a while after you watch it and lends itself to repeated viewings. Very highly recommended.