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DVD Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
 Run time: 105 min Rating: 7.2 Genres: Drama Director: David Zellner Writers: David Zellner, Nathan Zellner Stars: Rinko Kikuchi, Nobuyuki Katsube, Shirley Venard |
| Storyline A lonely Japanese woman becomes convinced that a satchel of money buried and lost in a fictional film, is in fact, real. With a crudely drawn treasure map and limited preparation, she escapes her structured life in Tokyo and embarks on a foolhardy quest across the frozen tundra of Minnesota in search of her mythical fortune. Written by Anonymous |
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| Plot Keywords: rabbit, language barrier | |
| Details: Country: USA Release Date: 25 April 2014 (UK) |
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DVD Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
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Kumiko, a Japanese employee, has only one hobby : treasures. She doesn't have any friends, and is really bored by her job. After seeing a VHS of "Fargo", she decides to travel to North Dakota to find the money hidden by Carl Showalter in the movie.
This movie is an excellent piece of work. Rinko Kikuchi appears under a new face with this introvert and amazing character, inspired by a true story.
David Zellner really did a good job of balancing comedy and drama : never exaggeratively funny, nor never desperately sad, the directing is very subtle and finds its own way to create an atmosphere around the point of view of an unusual character that sees the work differently than most of people do.
Which is, sometimes, really refreshing.
At age 29, Kumiko is an isolated depressive working in an office position that's usually reserved for younger Japanese girls that are filling their time before finding a husband and moving on. With no ambitions to follow suit, after finding a water-damaged VHS copy of the Cohen Brother's 1996 film, 'Fargo', she becomes obsessed with finding the money-filled suitcase buried by Steve Buscemi's character and stitches together her own treasure map of the North Dakota tundra. Likening herself to a conquistador, she sets off on a journey to the 'New World' on a hunt for buried treasure via less-than legal means. The film is slowly paced but the humor never misses the mark and its unique tone and style is absolutely beautiful. The story hinges on Rinko Kikuchi's ('Pacific Rim' / 'The Brothers Bloom') performance which keeps even the lulls in the narrative interesting.
The movie opens with Kumiko's life. She's a cold, solitary, with a very low self esteem woman on her late twenties. She doesn't like her job, her family. Anyway, the spectators never know what she likes, how she really is. What is revealed is that she can't conceive reality not as an achievement product of growing up, adulthood or whatever, Kumiko can't conceive reality as a concept. And reality becomes like that archetype which follows the story. But there's this crack of magical realism, the most important expression of this fiction crack is the map at the beginning of the movie (where did she get that map from?). That map is indeed, what produces the Fargo circumstance. We could think she is completely mad (actually, we know she won't find the briefcase), but we could think on that unreality crack where we are drag into and just watch how Kumiko encounters sparkles of real life. Maybe I'm being too complicated and this movie is just about a crazy woman. Bleh…why don't you watch it and then we discuss about it?