Survive Style 5+ (beautifully mental Japanese film)

Posted by Hex on Jan 28th, 2008
2008
Jan 28

A few years ago I heard about a film called Survive Style 5+ and it sounded pretty cool so I wrote down the name on a notepad. As time went by I moved it to my WishList. It stayed there for a couple of years, but no-one bought it for me. As my folks were in Florida and I was sick of getting no post, I ordered it from Play.com. I watched it about a week ago…

WOW! It is now in my top 5 films list! I love it! It’s completely mental, really laugh out loud funny the whole way through. The fight scenes look brilliant. The colours are magical. It even manages to have a real lump-in-throat moment near the end. It bombards you with mentalness and then suddenly BAM! Hits you full on with something so wonderful it makes you want to cry. It’s likened to Pulp Fiction quite a bit due to the 5 seemingly unrelated stories intertwining, and Pulp Fiction is also one of my favourite films… but I think Survive Style 5+ tops it. The soundtrack is fantastic and upbeat, I’m going to try and get hold of as much of it as I can.

The storylines go like this:

  • A man (with an awesome house) kills and buries his wife, only for her to return. Rinse and repeat for the films duration. By far the best and main story. Tadanobu Asano was probably the main reason I heard about this film and wrote it down.
  • A middle-management father takes his family to the “Viva Friends!” hypnotist show. He’s hypnotised to believe he is a bird before a hitman shows up and kills the hypnotist leaving him as a bird.
  • Three young burglers out to have fun, suppressing their secret love for each other. (MUCH funnier than it sounds, Jai West’s facial expression is brilliant).
  • An English hitman (Vinnie Jones in probably his best cast role ever) who wants to know everyone/things function in life.
  • An advertising executive with a bizarre sense of humour is inspired by all around her. (This actually seems like the story that doesn’t need to be told. As if this part isn’t really of the glue that holds the rest together. However, when you take into account the fact that the whole film is like one giant advert and the directors are more used to directing commercials… you realise it is probably one of the more important storylines. And the 2 schoolgirls in the diner are hilarious, not to mention the small role by Sonny Chiba).
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    Radiohead are JUST A BAND!

    Posted by Hex on Mar 26th, 2007
    2007
    Mar 26

    The past weekend it has to be said, was pretty fucking good. Sunday had a bit of an “arghhh!” moment, but once I calmed down things worked out cool.

    Saw 300. It’s a good film, but it’s also an awful film. For pretty fight scenes it’s great. For dialogue and un-cheezeyness… it’s rubbish! I pissed myself through most of it as the dialogue was cringe-worthy. It’s good as mindless entertainment though.

    Also went to The Oakford Social to see Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip. I am really getting to like the Oakford. Shame the drinks are soooo expensive, but it does seem to keep most of the riff-raff out. The music is also really good.

    What can I say about Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip…. AWESOME! Absolutely fucking ace! We ended up having really cool seats. We watched through a cubby-hole right next to the stage from a comfy leather sofa :oD I’m definitely going to try and catch them at Plug n Play in April. Really, really fun to go and see. And still such nice lads :o)

    Muppets-a-go-go

    Posted by Hex on Jun 1st, 2005
    2005
    Jun 1

    Erm… well, my trip to London didn’t exactly pan out. :o/ Firstly it was pissing it down when I woke up and I could feel myself getting less & less motivated to move.

    Then I got talked into a trip to a Garden Centre. This to me is proof of me getting old.

    I did get 2 nice Datura Fastuosas though… Hmmm… that makes me seem even older. Doesn’t it?

    Still, I’ll be up in London some time next week.

    So far the plan is to see the League of Gentlemen film at some point. Get a nice take away for Chris’ birthday, then head out and see if anyone’s about. Then for me to head out on Tuesday night and get picked up by Chris on his way back from Thai Chi/Kung Fu. Then I have to go up to London shopping/drinking on one day. Then on another day (either Thursday or Friday) I have to go to Bowtell’s Farm in East Tisted again with my Mum. Then on the Saturday I may be persuaded to go to Drop Zone although I really don’t like downstairs at the TUC. It smells :o(

    I’d also really like to get a visit to Savill Garden in cos all the Azaleas and Rhododendrons are out at the moment (not helping the age thing am I?) and also a visit to Dale Chihuly’s glass exhibit at Kew. Looks flippin’ awesome.

    Fuck Yeah!

    Posted by Hex on Jan 27th, 2005
    2005
    Jan 27

    /me joins bandwagon…

    http://www.cannibalthemusical.net/ta/america.htm

    oops

    Posted by Hex on Dec 1st, 2004
    2004
    Dec 1

    Been neglecting the LJ again. Sorry.

    Not much has happened… except a couple of weekends ago I did something very strange. It worried me a bit :o/

    Me & Chris had just watched Moulin Rouge, we were having a laugh, I said something mean to him so he tickled my feet to get his own back. One minute I’m laughing… then I feel my lip start to quiver, I panic feeling totally confused. Drag a blanket over my face & hide. It takes Chris a minute to realise I’m crying. Then the floodgates opened and I sobbed (and I mean full-on sobbed) for about 5 minutes solidly. Then fell asleep exhausted :os

    It was such a horrible feeling, my brain didn’t know what to do. I assume I just really needed to cry, but… well, it was weird and freaked us both out.

    I’m clearly addicted to UK Nova. I’m now a Power User :o/

    This song (M83 - ‘Safe’) rox so much it’s untrue. Quite possibly the most emotional I’ve ever been just listening to a piano (and kids watching fireworks).

    Bored.. so ranting.

    Posted by Hex on Oct 11th, 2004
    2004
    Oct 11

    OK, I haven’t put much up here lately. Mainly because I’m bored.

    So… I figured I’d have a good old rant about work for you to skip over & not read. I’m gonna be evil & not even LJ-cut it ;op

    Firstly… I’m emotional right now, no idea why. I think it must be stress.

    Well… Last Monday was really shitty, but for no real reason. Until just before 17:00 when I stormed out of work. I was the first one in that morning at 07:55. By 16:30 all my team had left. Which is lovely when we’re supposed to be covering until 17:00. Made even better by the fact that they all knew I was struggling to cope all day cos I had a migraine. Bastards *grrr*

    Tuesday was just fucking awful from start to finish. I had to miss out on my lie-in as I’d been booked into training that started at 09:30.. yeah, real good idea when I come in at 11:30 on Tuesdays! I got back from one of my breaks in the course to discover my PC had been murdered by the Networks Team. Somehow they’d caused a hardware error (PSU or Memory, I didn’t hang around to find out) and wrecked my PC just by putting some cabling behind the desk. I have no fucking idea how they managed it. Anyhoo, it all got too much for me when a colleague un-plugged the PC I was working on & I found myself crying at work. Again. Arse. I hate doing that. It makes me fit all the girly stereotypes. Ick.

    The rest of the week was just rubbish, rubbish rubbish.

    I felt so rank at the weekend I stayed in on Friday. Chris went out & proceeded to get very drunk and constantly text me telling me how shit it was and how no-one was out. This didn’t mean he went home though… :o/

    Saturday was terrible too. We got pizza from Papa Johns and it was rancid! REALLY salty cheese (please God tell me it was the cheese) and minging dips. We threw most of it away. We definitely won’t be going there again. Then we went to watch Kill Bill II only to discover the DVD that Chris had bought didn’t actually have a DVD inside it… then I fell asleep really early missing pretty much all the DVD watching. :o(

    Sunday I hooked the PowerBook up to my TV & we watched some Mind, Body & Kick Arse Moves and a little bit of Viva La Bam. God I love my TV & my PowerBook \o/

    I have a feeling…

    Posted by Hex on Aug 16th, 2004
    2004
    Aug 16

    …a certain LizardBoy might have this on pre-order:

    http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=181010&p=41&c=&g=56

    Cinema Madness

    Posted by Hex on Apr 18th, 2004
    2004
    Apr 18

    Went out on Friday only to find a very annoyed Chris at the pub. He meant to drive, forgot… got pissed about it.

    So, we decided to go & see Shaun of the Dead one more time. Maybe we could actually see the screen this time? Well, we saw the screen, but it was on Screen 4… and we had the same trouble with wankers shouting all the way through that we had last time we were at Screen 4! They must live in there or something.

    Anyhoo, it was nice too see it, if not hear it this time :oD Also, thanks to for letting me use his Shaun of the Dead icon :o)

    Saturday we pigged out on pizza (I know, not good, but I have been walking home lately) and played Beyond Good & Evil on the GameCube. It does look pretty good actually, I may have to buy it myself.

    I am so dreading work tomorrow. It might not be all that bad though as I seem to have done something right. On Thursday I was on a short training course for our upgraded Call management software. At the end we got to ask questions, no-one said anything, so I raised my concerns that there was going to be no data migration from the old system. The amount of times we use the “find similar” search to see what we did on old calls… I can see this being a real mare. The trainer couldn’t ask my question so she had to get the Big Bossman out of a meeting to answer it…. he looked at me like I was pure evil, but did say it was a good question and he was as worried as I was that no-one had asked it before (I was on the penultimate training course).

    I still wasn’t sure if it was good or a bad thing to ask the question as he had a little dig at my section after he’d answered it… they don’t like us asking questions, I think it’s a Civil Service thing. Anyhoo, Bossman’s not a Civil Servant. Turns out I might have done it right. As I was leaving on Friday he called out “See ya Jo, have a good weekend” Not only does he know my name… but he wished me a good weekend?! OMG. I nearly fainted. :o0 Kewl :oD

    Shauny!!!

    Posted by Hex on Apr 10th, 2004
    2004
    Apr 10

    Went to see Shaun of the Dead yesterday. Obviously it rocked like a rocking thing ;o) Yvonne totally rules. It happens so often, why was Shaun wasting his time trying to please that annoying cow Liz, when he was soooo suited to the awesome Yvonne?! Men. Pah…

    Had shitty seats (very front row, as far left as possible… weird perspective the whole way through) so going to see it again this weekend :oD

    Fantastic Plastic

    Posted by Hex on Mar 29th, 2004
    2004
    Mar 29

    Yay! My last Firebox order finally arrived today! I now have more Qee goodness. (I got the Acid one and the Invisible Dog - woooooo!)



    I also have Magnetoids! Rah!!! They’re infinitely playable errr… with, but probably not the wisest thing to have amongst my many electronic gadgets. Hmmm…. :os

    First day back at work was total shite. Seems I got lots of calls pushed my way when I was off cos no-one bothered to e-mail me or phone me with any questions, they just shoved the calls in my queue and left them there. Joy.

    Just got home to discover Dad fell down some steps at work and Mum’s had to take him to hospital. He thinks he broke his arm, but with him it’s hard to tell as he feels no pain… allegedly.

    I’m now incredibly bored and think I may have to go to sleep. Like, now. Watched Dracula 2000 last night and my God, how crap is that film?! Don’t even get me started on ‘Product Placement’…. geeeeez… This + a hard day at work have rendered me dribbling and useless. Not even able to make conversation on IRC.

    Oh my poor little eyes. Enough, to bed I go.

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