Kumiko the Treasure Hunter movie can be read as a bleak one-line comedy
REVIEW: A slow, enigmatic and faintly disconcerting drama Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter could also be read as a bleak one-joke comedy.
Leigh Paatsch
Don't miss out on the headlines from Leigh Paatsch. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (PG)
Director: David Zellner (Frontier)
Starring: Rinko Kikuchi, David Zellner, Nobuyuki Katsube, Nathan Zellner.
Rating: ***
When seeking is believing
A slow, enigmatic and faintly disconcerting drama, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter could also be read as a bleak one-joke comedy if the fancy takes you.
The premise has a surreal certain something about it, that’s for sure.
Rinko Kikuchi (Babel, Pacific Rim) plays Kumiko, a beaten-down Japanese office worker who becomes obsessed with an old VHS cassette she has recently found.
Eagle-eyed buffs will immediately spot Kumiko’s discovery as a rather weather-beaten copy of the classic 1996 Coen brothers movie Fargo.
The famously false “based on a true story” angle of Fargo is lost on poor Kumiko. For some strange reason, she thinks she has just watched a documentary.
So what is Kumiko to do? That Steve Buscemi fellow can be clearly spotted putting a million dollars in ransom money in a hole in the ground. That’s a life-changing pile of dough.
So Kumiko scrambles her rigidly ordered life — goodbye job, home and not-so-friendly acquaintances — to travel to rural Minnesota to find the buried bounty that ruined so many lives in the Fargo movie.
But what of this movie? Well, it’s an acquired taste, gently measuring the full delusion of this woman’s quest from every noble, poignant and pointless angle possible.
Kikuchi is wonderful in the title role, drawing a measure of empathy (if not outright support) from the audience for her character in what can only be described as frustratingly odd circumstances.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter is not based on a true story. (The 2001 news yarn about a Japanese woman dying in the snow while looking for the Fargo money was found to be a hoax.)
Originally published as Kumiko the Treasure Hunter movie can be read as a bleak one-line comedy
Mad About the Boy is best Bridget Jones film since the first
Bridget Jones has lost a husband and gained a younger lover but Renee Zellweger brings heart and humour to Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
Timely take on Munich Olympics terrorist crisis
The edge-of-your-seat factual drama September 5 takes viewers behind the scenes in one of the Olympic Games’ darkest hours with a message that still resonates today.