Salaryman Takagi wakes up fully clothed in an anonymous business hotel and attempts to recall how he got there. A series of flashbacks reveal how the events that led him to this place escalated out of control. As the audience is drip-fed information on Takagi's weekend from hell, a series of hilarious set pieces ensues, along with a stinging social commentary of Japan's repressed, alcohol-dependent work-obsessed culture.Tsutsumi is masterful as the mouse that roars, ranging from cowardly in a bar scene where he opts to drink down a fag dowt, to darkly heroic in his execution of an out-of-control chinpira and his moll. The supporting cast give strong performances, especially Yasuko Matsuyuki as a femme fatal, seducing Takagi like a siren call to hell. Interestingly, Matsuyuki does not have one line in the film, but is a clearly defined character. Character actors such as the ubiquitous Naomi Nishida shine in their epigrammatic appearances.The film will have you smiling in memory of many scenes long after viewing. Takagi writing his will, prolonging the moment, was dryly amusing. Tsutumi's dance in the yakuza bar is simply hilarious. The final third, unfortunately, drags on far too long, as Sabu's sensibilities and timing seem to fail him. The moment is somewhat redeemed by the 'reveal' that is has all been a daydream, but that final stand-off flags and ultimately spoils what was shaping up to be a perfect film.Not perfect then, but better than most. The first ten minutes, especially, are a masterclass in the set-up area of screen writing. Numerous questions are posed in the sequence, with the pay-offs arriving as the film progresses. For anyone interested in contemporary Japanese fimmaking, this is simply unmissable.

The room gets dark, the movie starts and after a short while I thought I knew what kind of movie I was watching. Nothing too fancy. A man awakes in a hotel room, it's Monday and he desperately tries to remember what he as did yesterday. One of those "flashback"-movies you would say, with old fashioned chapters and structure (I think that's why it was compared to a Tarantino movie). But then suddenly something unexpected happens, the movie just changes direction on and on and it's getting interesting. Genre, style and sujet and in the end the movie is an enjoyable mix of various elements, very well combined in my opinion. I'm afraid that for some people the movie might be not straight enough but if you are not completely bored of Japanese cinema I'd recommend to take a closer look on this one.

Without these "enlightening" fifteen minutes (at the very end) this movie may seem quite hopeless, though. It may seem too simple, too odd, too surreal... phony even. But make no mistake: MONDAY is plotted out much more clever than it appears.It is about a guy waking up in a hotel room with bit of a cloudy memory. Things start to come back to him as he bumps into all kinds of leads he find in his pockets. I imagine that the main thought behind it was, what the human mind capable is of doing with the means it has, and how it could be shown in a film. I can say that the creators have come a long way in showing the answer to this.As said, it will takes time to see there is more to it than it seems. Fortunate enough, the retrospective march of events that made the guy end up where is now, makes it perfectly clear that the unrolling celluloid is to be sure of revealing a well-thought-out plot. Second, the whole story raises enough questions about the sanity of the characters as well as the people who wrote the story, that one will sit it out no matter what, if only excited with hope for a plausible explaination for it all.It is unlikely that MONDAY (by Hiroyuki Tanaka) will be a boring experience to anyone. To many, especially those unfamiliar with Japanese cinema, it will be something different than usual, perhaps less exciting, a bit clownish, here and there the surrealistic texture will be a bit hard to swallow, but it surely will keep one curious. And that is the only thing this film needs.This is a movie, and, I think, Japanese directors, Tanaka in particular, have well understood what this means. It isn't real life and it doesn't have to appear this way. Even though some characters and their actions seem to be right from out of a comic book, this movie is as real as (a movie) can be.I heard someone comparing aspects in this film with Tarantino. I'm not entirely sure about that. Frankly, I believe the approach Tarantino uses in his work isn't that unique to begin with. I think it was to be expected that directors would make films the way he does some day. As for Japanese movies like that of Tanaka, I think it has little to do with Tarantino. I actually think we should speak of it as the 'Japanese approach' than the 'Tarantino approach', anyway. Was "Reservoir Dogs" not a remake of an underrated Japanese gangster film??? I think is was.Well. Tanaka is nowhere near Kurosawa yet. But surely no less than Miike, Kitano or Nakano. I therefore rate it 7.5!Watch it and be patient, enjoy it and be astound ;)

Although it has some dumb humour, it is an appealing thriller about a man who is confused about what's going on and gets even more confused (Kafka?). Another director would have been nice for this movie, because Tanaka probably doesn't really know how to get the actors to perform authentic in this apparently not so cheap film that needs good acting to get the black humour across. Unfortunately the acting turns out to be horrible (except Shinichi Tsutsumi), but the cinematography (Kazuhiko Sato) and the structure of the story are entertaining enough to keep you interested. Monday felt like Desperado (Rodriguez, 1995) for a while and then the mystery took over with some off-beat cinematic experiments that I appreciated very much. It ultimately didn't satisfy completely though, because of the forced finale of the story and nothing really stands out. I'm not going to spoil anything further, because somehow this curio is well worth watching.