ACF 871: Sabu's "Drive" at Japan Soceity

DRIVE © 2001 DRIVE Film Partners

Drive, Salaryman, Drive!

Drive
Written and directed by Sabu
Japan, 2002, 102 minutes

Last night, Japan Society's series of six films directed by Sabu continued with this variation on the theme of an everyday salaryman put into an unplanned and extraordinary situation.

Asakura Kenishi (Shinichi Tsutsumi) suffers from stress-induced migraines. After observing him at his doctor's office, we find him sitting in his car as he watches a lovely young woman (Kou Shibasaki) with a red umbrella looking at some flowers. While we know that he's expecting her to appear, we don't know if he deliberately has stopped to watch her, stalker-like, or if this is something that happens in the normal course of their daily routines, him waiting for a light, her shopping for flowers.

But this being a Sabu film, things are about to take a sudden, abrupt turn into the weird and unexpected, which they do in the form of three masked men who jump into his car and force him to pursue another masked man in a separate vehicle. Obviously this other party is a partner-in-crime who's betrayed them, as evidenced by the large back of loot he's making off with by himself.

Unfortunately for the trio, they've picked the wrong guy for a high speed pursuit. See, Asakura is fanatical about observing speed limits, obeying stop lights, and not making illegal turns. Neither the importuning of his unsought "companions" nor those of irate drivers can get him to "get a move on."

With Drive, Sabu injects an element of the supernatural into his usual mix: the ghosts of samurai and soldier, to be specific. It's a delightful film, perhaps the "lightest" of those in the series, and has a delicious ending.

ACF Rating: 3 out of 4 stars, solidly recommended.

For information about the film series Run, Salaryman, Run: A Retrospective of Sabu's Film Works, click here. The next film that will be shown is The Blessing Bell (2002), which will be shown tomorrow,Friday, February 4th, 2011, at 7:30 PM. For info about it and to order tickets, click here.