Mind Game (Masaaki Yuasa, 2004)

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Sometimes, actually more often than not, a visual powerhouse simply can’t be adequately reviewed or described through words. This is why I’ve presented a barrage of different screenshots from the movie, which should say an endless amount regarding the visual audacity and innovation of Mind Game; as a reminder, these screens are nothing compared to the uniqueness when in motion. Few movies are as surrealistically captivating and thought provoking as this one, and fewer animations succeed at this, though there’s never a shortage of interesting Japanese anime.

The narrative is so incredibly fragmented that the ideological nature of Mind Game seems to jumps around as frequently as does the style of animation, which is not the case. The narrative could be described as being cyclical in nature, since it ends where it begins, though there are some slight alterations, and returns to previous events several times during the course of the movie — trying to discuss such an elliptical movie in terms of conventional plot structure would be an exercise in futility.



However, after watching the movie carefully, and contemplating several other theories, the movie certainly works as an epiphany of the yakuza character, which I only partially worked out as at the end the plot elements are revealed to actually be a dream. As pretentious as the title Mind Game sounds, there really is an intelligent design at play in this movie, which is much more profound and humanistic than it originally appears to be. Whereas many movie analysis reviews tend to be farfetched, I think this one is pretty reasonable, but please feel free to gather your own interpretations that don’t necessarily coincide with mine.

It took me two viewings to grasp this entirely, but the opening montage is actually told in a linear, albeit rapid, fashion, entirely chronicling the entire film up until the opening shot of yakuza man. Because everything seems straightforward upon close attention, I’ll merely elucidate plot details now, and describe my personal feelings towards them after the ***** separation. Since the rapid pace of the montage is hard to follow, I’ll include screenshots of key shots and go through the events individually up until the story commences.

Then, there’s plot of the movie which is actually entirely a dream — I mean everything involving Nishi’s adventure. It’s very obvious, not simply a nonsensical hack theory, because at the end of this story, when they all finally escape the whale, the shot quickly cuts to the yakuza man waking up rather startled where the story started; this is what I mean when the story is cyclical, because the story ends where it started, yet now it will be completely different than the turn of events presented, which is why ‘the story never ended:’


The montage starts off with a baby nearing a bridge underneath the Eiffle tower, which is presumably his first memory. We know this is the old man because the montage continually follows this person, and we shots of him as a child and, as evident underneath, when he's older. Plus, they have the same nose.

Here he is now. We know this is the old man, because the montage follows this man's drug dealing, which is the exact same person and events depicted exactly the same during the old man's flashback.

A little bit older, upon entering a church.

In a perspective shot, he focuses on these paintings of demons as opposed to the paintings of angels, signify his decision to lead a life of crime.

His wife, with a pink watch he gave here. We notice later that Mr. Yakuza has this same colored watch, which Atsu draws attention to by calling it a 'fag' watch, meaning that he has saved an item from his mother. Yakuza, and his brother Atsu, are the old man's children. He also saved something from his father.

Here's his first child, Mr. Yakuza, so it's easily noticeable that the old man had a child. We don't see Atsu yet because he hadn't been born; however, we learn from the yakuza boss that employed Atsu that his mother died during childbirth. It's hard to catch, but everything pieces together.

The man's son had a toy suitcase, and the man decided to hide the drugs in an identical one, so it's easy to see how he got them confused. More 'time man' symbolism here, and this is why that character just randomly appears in Mr. Yakuza's mind.

Man stuffing the drugs.

Shot of him being swallowed by the whale, coinciding with the old man's story, because he is indeen within the whale.

Now we see Mr. yakuza grow up, and he meets a woman, with whom he falls in love.

However, she meets Myon's dad, so we know she ended up with him. We meet him in the dream, and realize that he's no-good womanizer.

Myon's mom goes off with her future husband, leaving the future yakuza man depressed, which inevitably propels him towards his life of crime.

This is the same exact car Mr. yakuza has later on, and it's insinuated that it was repossessed by the yakuza because of debts.

Mr. Yakuza becomes, well, a yakuza. He seeks revenge on Myon's father for stealing his love.

Now Myon, her sister Yan, and Nishi have all been born.


Nishi and Myon have later fallen in love.

...Until Myon decides to see someone else, which leaves Nishi grief stricken.

Atsu, all grown up, is hunting down Myon's dad. In the present, we learn that he is still picking up women, and grabs Atsu's girlfriend who took his world cup tickets, which gives both brothers their cause for revenge.

See, told you it was the same car. In the present, we learn that Myon's mother has taken in her father again, though they are still separated. Mr. Yakuza, in Myon's dad's old car, finds the women that was stolen from her again.

The world cup tickets.

Train tickets....

....for the two to leave together once and for all.

After he takes revenge.




After we realize this was all a dream, and Mr. yakuza wakes up, he drives away instead of following Atsu to take revenge on Myon's dad, which we saw in the alternate reality of the dream. Instead, once we see him drive away, we witness Mr. Yakuza simply neglect his evils ways and revenge by leaving and going on the train with Myon's mother. The dream was an epiphany; this was the entire purpose of the movie, setting the stage for the final decision of Mr. Yakuza!




But I might as well succinct recap the actual story. Nishi meets up with his high school sweetheart, whom he is still in love with, and walks with her to the restaurant her sister and her own. Atsu and Mr. yakuza, his brother come looking for Myon’s father, and Atsu ends up killing Nishi. Nishi meets God, who is constantly changing form because he’s representation of Nishi’s own perception, and he can’t decide what God should look like, only to find out that he will disintegrate into nothingness and that he was created for the means of God’s entertainment. Nishi attempts to get run his way back into life, and God permits considering that Nishi has a whole new perspective on life. So he goes back, kills Atsu, runs away with Myon and her sister and they get swallowed by a whale after the chase scene. This is where they meet the old man, who we’ve learned is the father of Mr. yakuza and Atsu. They all live there for awhile, and escape near the end of the dream. I’ll talk about what I think the significance of this is soon.

Then, Mr. Yakuza wakes up and he makes his final, right decision.

****************************************



Now, here’s just my personal observations on why the symbolic structure of the movie is enhancing to the thematic nature, besides being pretty damn engrossing. Well, of course there’s the whole theme of the yakuza making an ultimate decision to dismiss his preoccupation with revenge, and his subsequent desire to simply escape; this is paralleled with Nishi’s escape from the whale. Yes, I should mention that the entire bulk of the story isn’t meaningless because it was a dream, rather it has its own concrete messages, which can serve to inspire us as it deeply impacted Mr. yakuza.

When Myon first tells tells Nishi that she is contemplating getting married to a man we will soon meet in the restaurant, he declares how much he loves her, and then she hugs him claiming that they should be together. Of course, it soon cuts to the realization that this was one of those mental, hypothetical situations that Nishi purely imagined; I’m sure we’ve all had those daydream moments, which first allowed me to relate to Nishi as a character.



Just a little bit later, after an enraged Atsu and yakuza enter the restaurant, Nishi is shot through the rear up to his head by Atsu, which kills him instantly. After watching a recording of his embarrassing death, he meets God. I really love the concept of God continually shifting in form based on the perception of whoever is seeing him — not that it has much to do within the story. What I think does work within the context is that God has claimed to have created people for his own amusement, and that once dead, people simply disappear into nonexistence; this probably sets up Nishi’s desire to live again, knowing that every moment counts because it is the only time he has. So he races towards the blue life portal, opposed to the bad red one, so that he can live again, and the cheetah-formed God practically motivates him into doing so. Nishi them proclaims that he will live to the fullest, but the real change of heart is alluded to in the first shot of this review, which basically suggests that one can shape one's own future. Time can’t actually be altered — Mr. yakuza comments that he wish he had a magical belt like ‘time man’ — so Nishi is perpetuating the same theme that life has to be taken in the direction that he wants it to go, at any cost.

So he’s alive again, gun pointing at his rear. This time, he disarms Atsu and blasts him through the head, grabs the car keys from Mr. yakuza, and has a high speed chase with the whole team of yakuza. It’s here we learn of the crime boss who adopted Atsu into his care to work as a member of the yakuza. This is possibly the most exciting car chase I have ever seen in a movie, which is saying a lot. One of the yakuza drivers has a quick flashback where he remembers a pet bird who died, presented with a halo; this is like a second of foreshadowing because as soon as the flashback finishes, his car crashes into oblivion; I just love the insertion of these trips into the consciousness of the characters, such as a similar one where Nishi attempts a driving move he watched in a movie.

So they, because Myon and her sister were brought along, drive off the bridge and get eaten by the whale. With Nishi’s newfound optimism, he is practically unfazed at first. They also meet the old man, and his stories reveal that he is the father of Mr. yakuza, well at least for those who managed to pay extremely close attention. Nishi begins saying that he’s losing his faith in humanity, and inane little things that frustrate him because of his isolation. This is a reflection of how he was isolated before he experienced his change of heart. In a very brief clip, so subtle that you could easily miss it among the later montage, Nishi is serving customers in a store, but they are blank-faced, dehumanized people, until they are illuminated with faces; this is definitely great juxtaposed with Nishi’s desire to see the world again, further representing his new perspective on humanity. At one point he declares that he doesn’t care if he’s a loser, but that he simply wants to be part of the greater human scheme, after being isolated inside of the whale, and also from everyone beforehand.



Escaping the whale is probably the climax of the movie. Inside of the whale, Nishi couldn’t direct his life in any dimension possible, which explains his metaphorical desire to get back out into the world. After they all finally manage to boat, swim, and run out of the whale, they witness a marvelous city view. Nishi is watery-eyed after having witnessed it again, and the endless possibilities. Then enters a montage depicting different people, which puts the whole life decisions concept into perspective when it very briefly chronicles the life of an architect backwards. Then, after we see Nishi’s perspective again looking at the city, it projects possible futures on all of the four characters. It conveys tons of different possibilities for each individual character as a result of any of them living their lives in any way they choose.

Then Mr. Yakuza wakes up, and, after Atsu leaves, and this time misses the train Myon barely caught, drives to meet Myon’s mother instead of attempting to take revenge on her former husband, representing an entire change of character, as he symbolically rejects his murderous lifestyle to leave. The dream serves as an epiphany since after witnessing Nishi’s ultimate decision to take personally driven direction in his life, and his awareness of all the possibilities, Mr. yakuza manages to take an alternate course of direction.



Then there’s one final montage, which appropriately reaffirms the cyclical nature of the story because it starts with the same first montage illustrating everything up to the beginning, or end, of the story. This one is coupled with more possible directions of the characters, including several of the supporting characters who weren’t evident in the previous montage. Also present are notable world events, many of them twentieth century milestones, though it all inclusively shows several negative events including a murder which only adds to the theme that all roads are available to take. The ‘this story has not ended’ finale references that most people in modern society are certainly able to take complete grasp of their malleable lives, and shape themselves and their course in practically any manner. Even within the context of the movie this is applicable because the never-ending possibilities for the characters ensures that there isn’t really ever an ending.

Don’t think I need to say much about the animation, because of all the screenshots, but it’s rare to see any film, or animated film, implement a myriad of techniques like this movie does. Dozens of styles of animation are used, and along with the tradition Japanese animation there is rotoscope, numerous forms of computer animation, sketches, and other drawing mediums. The musical score is also great, and is equally varied. There are loud, pulsating drums, soothing Spanish music, modern Japanese songs, and traditional classical music all utilized throughout the movie, making for a more enhanced, interesting experience.

Really, I could go on for pages and pages on why I love this movie, but at that point I would be being repetitive and not really saying much. This is really the sort of movie that could easily change someone’s life, or at least inspire someone to make advantageous changes. It’s extremely thought provoking, entertaining, and even very emotionally powerful; pretty much everything I could want in a movie was delivered. I rarely rewatch movies, even ones that I really love, and can never remember rewatching a movie two days after watching it the first time, but I did just that with Mind Game. This will probably be received best by fans of Mulholland Drive and similar movies, though I recommend this to everyone. I’m sure plenty of people won’t consider it such an amazing movie as I, but it’s an experience that shouldn’t be missed.

Two Rene Magritte influence frame right here. Think I'm just making up Magritte allusions at this point? Image search him and you're bound to find a painting of his that very much resembles these.








































































































Images of God.