Jôhatsu tabinikki

This movie show unfamiliar yet powerful image, like movie of Terayama Shuji. The main theme of the movie is the figure of a helpless man who ran away, and the original cartoonist (Yoshiharu Tsuge) also has a similar atmosphere in most of his works. Compared to the original cartoon drawings full of distorted and thick pan-touch, the film portrays the simple yet beautiful countryside of Japan in a grotesque and beautiful way.

The film looks like the real experience of the original cartoonist Tsuge Yoshiharu. It shows the naked scenery of Japan's 70s and 80s, including inns, cheap striptease shows, and shabby temples in the Japanese countryside, along with the music of that time. Through it, movie fantastically portrayed the empty feelings of cheap pleasure.

The woman pursued by the protagonist is not a real person. It is a new life that settles and takes root, an unreachable utopia. However, the man who ran away can't get anything. The only option left for him is to go back to Tokyo. A true coward cannot give up what he left behind. And he doesn't even have the courage to start a new life. He simply puts on his mask and hides the face he left behind on a secret journey.

This film portrays the tragic life of human beings very well. I think it's also a hidden masterpiece.