Funky Forest

Naisu no mori: The First Contact

Japan

2005

150 Min

Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
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DIR Hajime Ishimine, Shunichiro Miki, Katsuhito Ishii

SCR Hajime Ishimine, Shunichiro Miki

CAST Tadanobu Asano, Susumu Terajima, Ryo Kase, Andrew Alferi

Synopsis

This is one of those movies where words really can’t do the movie justice. Katsuhito Ishii, along with two of his pals, takes elements from his previous films (Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl, Party 7, The Taste of Tea) to create an utterly surreal omnibus that ranges from the utterly bizarre to the unbelievably funny. Some of the more bizarre characters you will encounter in Funky Forest are Alien Piko-Riko, Bloodsuckers, and Pero the dog director. The movie’s narration is as unorthodox as these characters. The film is split into an A-Side and B-Side and includes a 3 minute intermission during the half way point in the film. Also, the film is told through non-linear sketches that contains recurring characters and themes.

(From http://lunapark6.com/funky-forest-the-first-contact.html)

Director

Katsuhito Ishii

Katsuhito Ishii (石井克人 Ishii Katsuhito?) is a Japanese film director. Katsuhito Ishii began directing commercials in 1992, receiving numerous awards in this field. After shooting his first short film The Promise of August in 1995, which went on to receive the Japanese Film Grand Prix in the Fantastic Video Section of the 1995 Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival, he made his feature debut with Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl, based on the visual novel by cult manga artist Minetaro Mochizuki and starring regular collaborator Tadanobu Asano. Ishii quickly followed his success with another box office hit, Party 7 (2000), which featured Masatoshi Nagase, Yoshio Harada and Tadanobu Asano among others. Between the years 2001 and 2002, he created a series of short films including the 3D animated dialogue piece Hal & Bons and the 2D animated space opera Trava Fist Planet. Among other commercials and select TV projects including the short Black Room which starred Takuya Kimura… read more