Thursday, October 16, 2008

SDAFF (Day #4 / Closing Night!) / “Accuracy of Death”




“Accuracy of Death” Official Trailer



Masaya Kakei | 2007 | Japan

In the same vein as Always: Sunset on Third Street, ACCURACY OF DEATH is a charming tale about the Grim Reaper and his talking dog that celebrates the idea that life is worth living. Taiwanese/Japanese heartthrob Takeshi Kaneshiro (The Returner) plays an angel of God who is assigned to spend a week with the unfortunate humans chosen for a sudden demise. His task is to decide whether the person deserves a second chance, or if he is to “proceed.”

Stretched across thirty years – in which Kaneshiro’s character never ages – the charismatic but lonely Grim Reaper encounters three lost souls. In 1988, he considers the case of a young office lady who lives an unlucky life she hardly considers worth living. In 2008, he has to judge the death-worthiness of a middle-aged yakuza trapped in the middle of a gang war. And in the future, he meets a feisty hair stylist who has reached the end of her life but also managed to alienate her entire family.

Kaneshiro, who has appeared in films by Wong Kar-Wai, Zhang Yimou and John Woo, takes an unpromising part and turns in an amazing performance, telegraphing emotion with a well-timed tilt of the head or a slight smile. By the time the movie ends, he has single-handedly sold the audience on the idea that death is an inevitable part of being alive and there’s never a need to fear the reaper.

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