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Highly Overrated But Still Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

if your an American over 30 you won't get this unless you know about young Japanese culture. Likewise, if you are intelligent, and under this "age limit" you will get this movie. Its a real interesting expose about the aimlessness youth society has taken, I found the Jellyfish metaphor intriguing. The soft spoken characters urge you to want to know more about them, yet, at the same time, you begin to think you understand them. I have really become a fan of the more "intelligent" movies that japan has to offer as of lately (as opposed to the slasher and samurai movies), and they do not disappoint. If you enjoyed Kikujiro, you will like this movie, likewise if you enjoyed this movie, be sure to check out Kikujiro. While Akarui mirai is not the best film I have ever seen, it is defiantly something i would recommend.

To me, this film seemed to be harshly critical of the youth of Japan. There are distinct parallels between the deadly Jellyfish, and the destructive kids in their Che Guevara shirts. In this film, I believe Kiyoshi Kurosawa may be making the statement that young people in Japan are becoming as passive and destructive as Jellyfish. If you are not used to slow pacing in films, you may not like this movie, or Kiyoshi Kurosawa's other work for that matter, (or many Japanese films). But if you allow yourself to be immersed in the dreamlike qualities of the film, and pay close attention to its symbols and their underlying social message, you may get something out of the experience. Also, the film's final shot is amazing, mysterious, elegiac, and a bunch of other good adjectives. If you like this film, you should also see the same director's "Charisma."

Kyoshi Kurosawa is becoming one of my favorite current filmmakers, and the further he gets from conventional horror and shock, the better I think he is.Deeper meanings mingle with absurdist humor, and the kind of chance occurrences that enliven the fiction of Paul Auster and Haruki Murakami also figure heavily in Kurosawa's films; cinematically, everything from Lynch or Fellini to Don Siegel can be a touchstone for further exploration.BRIGHT FUTURE is like an improved CHARISMA - more refined, less loony, and considerably more poetic, but K Kurosawa's many concerns - trashing of the environment, a sense of depersonalization (and discreet nihilism) in younger/future generations, the erosion of a society's cohesiveness (especially when that erosion originates within, and not from some external source) - are handled very well - the last shot offers his darkest humor, with the cross-generational understanding becoming something quietly heroic evoking certain past masters of Japanese film. A sense that - if younger generations have drifted towards a nihilism that could destroy them or you, it is balanced by an equally withering take on the older generations that somehow let them down; this film in many ways visualizes the idea of getting over it, and moving on with life (after presenting some of the consequences for not doing so).Tadanobu Asano's presence here is somewhat hyped (definitely on the DVD cover), undoubtedly due to his ascendant global stardom, but his performance is eclipsed by co-stars Joe Odagiri and Tatsuya Fuji, who both deliver dynamic performances of great range and control.Mysterious, poetic, open to many interpretations, and one of Kyoshi Kurosawa's finest.

Nomura practically does not speak, in fact he could be an idiot. Mamoru seems to live in a constant and intense reflection. They both work in a oushibori factory, where the warm and humid towels given to clients at sushi restaurants are made. When not at work, they spend time playing video games or at the bowling room. Nomura admires the jellyfish that floats in Mamoru's fish tank; in his head, Mamoru can't stop thinking about his plan. They live in Tokyo, from which the spectator only sees trash, recycling material and ageless objects. Once, their boss is interested for both friends; he visits them, speaks with them about their youth. Some time after, Mamoru kills him with the rest of his family. In prison, facing death penalty, he receives the visit from his father, who he hasn't seen in years. The old man repairs old televisions and radios that finds in garbage deposits. It's been a long time since the father gave up to any contact with the world and its social ambitions. This is when Mamoru, quiet and manipulator, sets up the last part of his plan. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director of Bright Future,is one of Japan's most ambitious contemporary filmmakers, his work seeks to change the classic forms of cinematography to evoke a state of social reality. Born in postwar Kobe in 1955; he is the author of 17 films and three films for TV. His filmography is full of lonely characters and horror. Bright Future manifests a violent vision of the Japanese youth. Young people with no ambitions nor aspirations of any kind,sicken young people that do not fit in today's society. Violence in its most passive way. Kurosawa uses long and quiet shots, that strike upon the spectator's patience. The father's figure and his technological anachronism serve as a reference to the past, and to contrast the idea that technology drowns the modern Japanese; marginating youth to loneliness, turning them into a disperse society. The film can be interpreted as a ghost story. The ghosts of ideals an hope of social change. Ghosts of memories and ordinary practices, that in Kurosawa's work turn violent, they transform to dead ends. The mise-en-scene is magic, a dream like aesthetic that includes the invasion of Tokyo by an army of poisonous jellyfish. A plastic beauty that accompanies all the questioning and illustrates the consequences of a terrorist act. Bright Future is a philosophical exposition about the individual in society, as brilliant and at the same time as dark, that succeeds to move and interest.