Kulong

　　2026年新年，渚（仲里依纱 饰）在咖啡店“SCANDAL”迎来意外访客——从昭和穿越而来的市郎（阿部隆史 饰）。借助井上（小野武彦 饰）研发的“时间隧道”，他们得以往返各个时代。市郎试图改变女儿纯子（河合优实 饰）与命运的相遇，又回到1995年地震前夕阻止悲剧，却引发新的涟漪。与此同时，渚卷入政治风波，支持的女性议员平纯子（江口德子 饰）在2036年竟将成为日本首位女首相。为了守护家人与未来，市郎踏上最后的时空冒险。

　　一个想拍摄出恐怖纪录片的剧组在网路上发布了试镜公告，表明他们要找寻隐藏于现实生活中的骇人怪物，没想到有三个自称兽行者、吸血鬼与恶魔的报名者要前来试镜。他们相约于月全蚀之夜，在一栋森林中的偏远豪宅见面，原本只是要请对方分享自己的灵异经验，没想到竟弄假成真，变调成一场挥之不去的恐怖梦魇。

她离开丈夫与儿子，也离开稳定的律师工作，在泳池、露天咖啡厅与私人公寓自在游走。以写作寄托生活，对儿子的爱未减半分，与丈夫也亲如挚友，直到那日，她向丈夫吐露与女性的亲密关系，完美生活旋即化为一场幻梦。在失去监护权后，她不得不在机构间穿梭，为了见儿子一面奋力一搏，却不知这样的困境，何时能走到尽头？

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.