Dead Run (Hong Kong Version) DVD Region 3

Based on the novel by Shigematsu Kiyoshi, Dead Run tells the story of Shuji (Tegoshi Yuya), a perfectly normal kid with a seemingly normal family - a smart older brother named Shuichi and two proud parents. They live in an area near the ocean nicknamed "The Shore," and the area nearby developed on landfills is called "Offshore," whose residents are often looked down upon. One day, young Shuji, lost in Offshore, has a chance encounter with local smalltime gangster Demon-ken and his hostess girlfriend, Akane. Even though Demon-ken is found killed in a brutal fashion soon after that, the memory of the encounter lingers in Shuji's mind over the years.

Years later, a church has moved into Offshore, and Shuichi becomes obsessed with the priest's notorious past. Meanwhile, Shuji become enamored with the only churchgoer, a rebellious young girl named Eri (Kan Hanae) who seems to hate him from the start. However, the two begins to grow closer as Shuji becomes a regular at the church. But a construction deal to redevelop offshore has brought the yakuza over to the church to force a relocation deal, bringing Akane, now attached to criminals higher in the yakuza ladder, back into Shuji's life. At the same time, Shuji's life begins to spiral out of control when Shuichi is caught cheating during an exam as his family slowly but surely disintegrates until Shuji has no choice but to run.

Abandoning much of the efficient storytelling style he's known for, Sabu takes a sober approach in telling Shuji's story possibly due to the serious subject matter. The 124-minute film takes its time to set up the characters and the various themes, so audience won't be able to figure out where exactly the film is going until the end of the first act. But once the darker aspects of the plot arrive, audiences will have a hard time turning away as Shuji places himself in deeper trouble everywhere he goes. Dead Run may be too depressing or frustrating for some, as Shuji sees his journey become gradually more perilous everywhere he goes, but those who stay around may also be compelled by its ideas of sins and responsibility. If one looks at its original Japanese title (Shisso means "to dash.") and its association to the characters, one can get a pretty clear sense of what it wants to say regarding responsibility. The tragedy of the story is that no matter where Shuji runs away to, he finds himself getting closer to sin with every step.

As Dead Run moves to its second half, Sabu lays out all the unpleasant stuff at once, losing a lot of the directorial assuredness of the first half. Nevertheless, there are plenty of beautiful, even touching, moments to be found. One scene in particular shows a storefront gate where an anonymous person has written "please kill me" with the phone number under it. Seeing the message, Shuji writes "Someone please be with me forever" with his phone number. Moments like these offer glimpses of hope throughout, but fail to lift Dead Run out of the pessimism that drives and surround the story. Even the over-the-top perverse nature of one particular sequence is overcome by its permeating seriousness throughout, as if Sabu won't even let his audience indulge in a little bit of exploitation violence because it'll get in the way of the serious messages of his film.

I find it hard to recommend Dead Run - it's a serious and dreary piece of filmmaking that's about as pleasant as a punch to the gut, even though it's really not that painful. At the same time, there's much to admire about it - the performances, the confident direction (at least for the most part), the ideologies of sin and consequences - that I find it hard to not recommend it as well. Among the pessimism, Dead Run is still involving and compelling enough to make it a notable artistic achievement that deserves more attention than it's getting.

by Kevin Ma