Focus


Photo Courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival

A vivid examination of the exploits of "reality" television, Focus is witness to a segment of society truly gone amuck. This pseudodocumentary involves a three-person TV crew and their prey - Kanemura, an unbalanced fellow whose world revolves around eavesdropping with hightech equipment. Police radio calls, sex lines,family members who "bug" their young, Kanemura is there, and so, via the parasitic reporters, are we.

These so-called journalists turn Kanemura from an introvert to a pervert, violating his privacy and dissecting his personality until one of the phone calls they listen in on involves the yokuzo and gun smuggling. Discovering the gun's whereabouts, the television crew demands that Kanemura perform in the yorose (faked scene), a reenactment, the director explains, so "the viewers can understand. "Meanwhile a group of young thugs damage Kanemura's car, provoking him to use the pistol. Kanemura then turns the table on the reporters, forcing them to perform an equally disturbing yorose of his own design.

AsanoTadanobu (Japan's hottest young actor) is a standout as the tortured victim/antihero, who may represent a growing number of those who are obsessed with new technology.
-Andreo Alsberg

Directed by: Satoshi Isaka
Written by: Kazuo Shin
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Akira Hirai, Keiko Unno
Original Music by: Hiroshi Mizuide