DRIVE is the fifth film from writer-director Sabu (real name: Hiroyuki Tanaka) in as many years, following DANGAN RUNNER (1996), POSTMAN BLUES (1997), UNLUCKY MONEY (1998) and MONDAY (2000). Strangely, Sabu’s films haven’t become as popular in the West as those of his contemporaries (so far, none of them have been released on home video in the US/UK), despite their success at film festivals and their general air of ‘coolness’. I’ve seen all of Sabu’s films to date, but have remained unsure how I rate him behind the camera (as an actor, in both Otomo’s WORLD APARTMENT HORROR (1991) and Miike’s ICHI THE KILLER (2001) he is excellent). His films all have a very similar feel - not surprising, given the many thematic similarities present. They tend to be structured around a chain of coincidences and consequences, and centred around people moving from place to place at a frantic pace. For DRIVE, the usual running/cycling is replaced by driving. And instead or the usual frantic pace, we have the opposite.

Kenichi Asakura (played by Shinichi Tsutsumu, Sabu’s regular main actor) is at the doctor’s. He’s been having migraines and the doctor diagnoses them as nervous migraines, triggered by stress or tension. "Loyal, square, stubborn, ‘A-type’ personalities" are most likely to suffer from this type of migraine. He prescribes some painkillers and Asakura leaves. Sitting at a crossing in his car, he watches a young woman (Kou Shibasaki, who you may recognise from BATTLE ROYALE (2000)) accidentally making a mess of a flower stall. Suddenly, three masked men jump into his car as another car goes screeching past - "Follow that car," he is told. There follows an absurd ‘chase’, during which we learn that Asakura obeys the law absolutely, even when threatened by gangsters. He simply doesn’t know how else to behave. Not surprisingly, the other car gets away, and its occupant, Mickey (Toshio Kan) parks up by a field, in which awaits his getaway car. He was one of the gangsters, who had just robbed a bank. He escaped with the bag of money - "I’d say mine are superior skills," he says to himself whilst tossing the car keys up and down. Of course, he drops them and they fall down a deep hole in the ground. He attempts to retrieve them, only to get his arm stuck in the hole, up to the shoulder.

Meanwhile, his three former companions and Asakura are having a meal. One of the robbers, Jyoun (the great Susumu Terajima) is apparently psychic and tells Asakura that he can see a "ghost over him," which is causing the migraines. Just then a guy comes over to them and threatens to tell the police that they were responsible for the robbery if they don’t pay him off. Of course, they can’t pay him off as they don’t have the money anymore. Just then a police car happens to pull up outside and the guy heads towards the door to carry out his threat. What follows can best be described as a human ‘domino rally’, with rather nasty consequences. The four escape, Asakura seemingly having thrown his lot in with the robbers for better or worse. We then follow them as they each meet their destinies, eventually leaving only Asakura, who inevitably ends up having to free Mickey from the hole in the ground...

Perhaps the strangest thing about DRIVE is that it ends in a way that is completely unexpected give what has gone before. The first 75 minutes or so are very light-hearted and funny, but the last 25 are completely different in tone, becoming much darker and also completely weird. It has to be said that the first part works much better, and I’m not entirely sure where Sabu was going with the last part, which drags on and is not really very satisfactory. Some people seem to have read it as a kind of story of retribution, in which people get what they deserve. This reading is given weight by an earlier exchange in the film in which the characters debate the idea of "karmic fate". However, all of the robbers (or two of them anyhow) do very well out of their ‘fates’, whilst only Mickey really gets any kind of retribution. We learn that Asakura’s father was a strict disciplinarian and that his parents committed suicide, leaving him to the care of a demented aunt. Asakura’s life has been dictated by his father’s actions and he feels unable to live his own life, hence the ‘ghost’ seen by Jyoun over him. By the end of the film he has freed himself from these inner demons, getting rid of them in the most literal sense and finding happiness with a sweet girl, who is almost as boring and inhibited as himself.

Many parts of the film are genuinely, if very darkly, funny - Asakura’s painfully slow driving (even buses go flying past him), his crazed aunt, and Terajima’s marvellous on-stage spur-of-the-moment performance with the ‘F**k Stars’ at a rock gig. Also, strange things happen to Mickey whilst he’s stuck in the hole, and these are definitely some of the oddest scenes Sabu has come up with so far. The acting is uniformly excellent (the other two robbers are played by Masanobu Ando and the ever-reliable Ren Ohsugi) whilst the photography is made up of Sabu’s usual studied, formal, unhurried compositions juxtaposed with the expected frenetic camera work required for the chase scenes. Those who are familiar with Sabu’s other work will find much to enjoy here then; the usual credibility-stretching coincidences, off-the-wall humour, quirky characters, lightweight narrative and bizarre set pieces are all present and correct. I’ve still not completely made my mind up as to my opinion of Sabu as a writer/director, but this is definitely up there with DANGAN RUNNER as his strongest work to date. I’m looking forward to seeing his latest film, BLESSING BELL (2002) and perhaps then I’ll finally be decide exactly what I make of Sabu...

Cast:

Shinichi Tsutsumu - Kenichi Asakura
Susumu Terajima - Jyoun Arai
Ren Ohsugi - Garo Nishi
Masanobu Toshio - Makoto Kodama
Toshio Kan - Mickey
Kou Shibasaki - Sumire Sakai
Yasuko Matsuyuki
Kanji Tsuda