Mind Game

After seeing her jump onto a subway at the last second and getting her ankle crushed between the doors, Nishi reconnects with his high school sweetheart, Myon. Nishi is still very much in love with Myon, but is shocked to learn that she is engaged to another man. Nishi agrees to meet Myon's fiancé at her family's Yakitori restaurant, but members of the Yakuza storm the joint and murder Nishi when he tries to stop them from raping Myon. Nishi, now dead, wakes up and meets a constantly shapeshifting god, who mocks him for dying. The god tells Nishi to walk into a portal and disappear from existence, which Nishi rejects, choosing instead to sprint past the god and reanimate. With a new outlook on life and knowledge of how the Yakuza are going to attack him, Nishi kills one of the Yakuza with his own gun, fleeing in a stolen car with Myon and her sister. Acclaimed director Masaaki Yuasa's debut film, Mind Game's constantly shifting visuals tell a story about living one's life without regrets that is unlike any other. Nishi, an awkward young manga artist in Osaka, has had on longstanding crush on Myon. Thing is, Myon's got a thing for rugged Ryo. Matters come to a head at her sister Yan's yakitori restaurant, in the presence of the girl's dissolute father — who happens to owe a bunch of money to a pair of creepy gangsters, who've come to collect. Things get ugly, and Nishi gets killed in a brutal, graphic fashion. End of the story? No way, that's just the start. Pulling a fast one on God (in all his/her/its infinite manifestations), Nishi hightails it back to Earth, where he replays the crime to his advantage, steals a car and grabs the girls. Under a hail of yakuza gunfire, he bails off a bridge — and into the mouth of a whale. There, he and his two female companions encounter a tenacious and lively old man who has set up camp in the beast's belly, longing to someday return to human company on dry land. With no immediate exit available, the quartet make do — fishing, fighting, making love, weaving tales of strange happenings on faraway planets and dreaming of life in the real world. Will they ever set foot there again?