[KFCC] Down The Drain Review

Story: On a regular day on her way home Junco, an average high school girl, is arrested by a train agent for the simple reason that she is using a friend's train pass illegally. Taking the opportunity that the agents were not paying close attention to her during her restraint, she decides to leave. Maybe not the best decision from her, as from that moment everything goes very wrong for her, in a totally chaotic way. Loosing her grand mother, travelling in an empty refrigerator, the disappearance of her whole family, and even ending up at in a country hospital is just a small glimpse of what her future has in store.

Review: It’s hard to believe that a simple day can turn into something as chaotic as what happens in Down The Drain. Mixing black comedy and situational humor the movie never stops playing with the destiny of Junco, in the worst ways you can ever imagine. Down the Drain is director Shinobu Yaguchi’s first work. He was also behind the 2001 smash hit Japanese comedy Waterboys, and Yaguchi’s ability to master comical situation is again very well presented in Down The Drain.

The movie follows the young schoolgirl named Junco and the storyline is spread over a few months of her life, or I could say the wackiest moments of her life. I won’t go into too many details about the story as it will spoil the fun of discovering the crazy developments of the movie. I can, however, tell you that there’s no way someone can expect what will happen during these few months. Of course, the whole story might not be the most clever script ever but it was easy to follow, entertaining as there’s a lot of funny things going on, and never goes to the incomprehensible enigmatic art level.

Junco, the very simple and shy school girl, on whom it seems that the world is falling on her shoulders, is played by Saori Serikawa. Judging by her age and acting abilities, it was probably her first and only feature film. The character is well portrayed and you could feel a lot of pity for her but it never goes beyond that as we forget about her as fast as we got introduced to her. Along her incredible adventure, Junco will meet a lot of interesting characters who will all have a high impact on her destiny. Again, I cant tell that much about them as most of them will change personality, or be revealed as different to who they pretend to be. The overall acting was decent but you could always feel that most of the actor were not really experienced and had some difficulty in portraying their characters, like Junco’s parents or her friends.

But though the acting is a bit poor, something is present to save the situation and that was humor. To be precise, black humor. You know, those kind of moments that things are so bad, you can’t resist but laugh until you can’t stop any more. Well I’m exaggerating a bit as there’s no moment in the movie that I found myself rolling on the floor, but there’s enough campy black comedy to please fans of the genre. The humor is not realistic, as you will find that most of the events are so absurd that it can’t happen to someone in real life (well, I hope). In fact someone could have told me before the viewing that the movie was directed by Sabu and I would have believed him, as the movie is very similar to any of Sabu’s work. As they both share a bad luck chain of events, and the same type of black humor.

Down The Drain might not be the greatest movie of its genre, but if you are interested in director Shinobu’s past work or you are a fans of Sabu’s movies, you will appreciated Down The Drain for sure.