Survive Style 5 (2004) The Return of a Stone Cold Cult Classic Weirdo

As far as Japanese movies which aren’t available in the UK are concerned, Survive Style 5 is one of the big ones. An entire generation of Japanese cinema fans were introduced to this slice anarchy by a long out of print Manga Entertainment DVD. That release climbed to the legendary heights that few attain, one single DVD was going for hundreds on the used market, and any other attempts to hunt it down required diving deep into the illicit corners of the internet – kept alive by the fans who found it when it inexplicably got a decent western release. It’s fine if you had that original release, but just vanishing off the market never to be seen again for 20 years is a hard pill to swallow, especially with all the talk about media preservation in light of Sony’s decision to cease production of discs. Now, in 2026, it’s back, and you have to hand it to Third Window Films, they have given Sekiguchi’s weirdness a second chance, especially with the recent limited theatrical run. And now its ours to own again, and in fully blown 4K too.

Survive Style 5 was directed by Gen Sekiguchi, and outside of a segment of the compilation Quirky Guys and Gals, this was his only feature film work as director. You can only surmise that this production failed to recoup its expenses, born from its ambitiously starry cast and some of the most lavish sets and if this was a commercial flop, it explains why it had all but fallen off the face of the earth. Beyond this, he is known better for his commercial and music video work than anything in the cinematic arts.

Sekiguchi’s movie is an anthology in the same way that Pulp Fiction is, which is to say, a series of interlinked stories featuring tangentially connected tales that occasionally cross streams. However, this is not set in the criminal underbelly like Tarantino’s classic. Rather, Survive Style 5 is set in an abstract, hyper-real fantasy vision of Japan that subscribes to the same deadpan, surrealist weirdo-vision that the likes of Katsuhito Ishii (A Taste of Tea), Satoshi Miki (Adrift in Tokyo) and Yoshihiro Nakamura (Fish Story) operate within. Furthermore, none of the tales has any real direction or conclusion; instead, they all circle around a question uttered by one of its many confusing citizens: “what’s your function”?

For the sake of cataloguing the anarchic nonsense, here we go.

Events open with Tadanobu Asano (Aman), who has a conflicted relationship with his wife (Reika Hashimoto). She cooks lavish meals and sits there meekly as he devours more food than a human should, then she tries to kill him. She fails, he kills her, he buries her, and she returns to try and kill him again, day after day, forever trapped in a cycle. Yoko (Kyoko Koizumi) is a commercial maker who dreams of making funny adverts, inspired by funny little interactions in her day-to-day life. Only the people who pay her to make these adverts want to make dry, matter-of-fact “CMs,” one of whom is Sonny Chiba in a very down-to-earth cameo. Yoko is something of an avatar for Sekiguchi in his day job. She sleeps with a hypnotist, Aoyama (Hiroshi Abe), who frankly puts on more of a dance show. His latest gig is in Narita, where he meets the happy family man and father to two kids, Ittoku Kishibe (Tatsuya Kobayashi), who luckily got tickets to this popular show through work. Kobayashi gets picked out of the audience to play a game, where if Aoyama fails to hypnotise his subject, they win 1 million yen. He successfully hypnotises the family man into thinking he is a bird when two men intrude on the show, and successfully kill the popular performer. Yoshiyoshi Arakawa is a translator who can barely understand the Hired Killer (Vinnie Jones) who is there to kill Aoyama, ignorant that killing him traps Kobayashi in an unbreakable state of believing himself to be a bird. Forever. And last but far from least is a trio of burglars: Kanji Tsuda, Yoshiyuki Morishita and Jai West, the latter two sharing a very thinly veiled erotic tension.

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Many people became aware of this movie for two reasons. The first is obvious: the very idea that Vinnie Jones is in a Japanese comedy, which feels like fair justification for those conspiracy theorists who believe we are living inside the matrix. If they knew this existed, anyway. And the second is that it stars one of the most popular Japanese actors of the past 30 years, Tadanobu Asano. This was when Asano was the coolest actor on the planet and his role selection was to be marvelled at. In fact, he is my favourite actor and has been since I discovered him during this area, where he appeared in anything from surrealist nonsense made on a shoestring budget to the biggest of budget blocbuster; he doesn’t really discern a difference and I love him for it. Here Asano plays a laconic, deadpan character, but it takes a talented actor to make no effort work as part of a dramatic scripted piece. The other remarkable facet of this movie is Ittoku Kishibe. Now his name alone may not jump off the page, but he has 175 acting credits to his name. He has worked with Kitano, Miike, Tsukamoto and basically anyone of note in the Japanese industry, that is a titan of Japanese small and big screen, and in this, he plays a man who makes noises and behaves like a bird.

With everything I’ve said so far, it may come across as boring to say that the thing which stood out most is the set decoration. Every location is full of life and eccentricity, where it looks like they borrowed the houses of the most decadent 1970s coke-fuelled rock stars. The house that Tadanobu Asano lives in might well be the coolest house I have ever seen in any film. It looks like something from a Mario Bava movie, and anyone who knows Italian cinema knows that his sets, colours and visions are so beautiful that they border on the erotic. This house is the same. Somebody who picked up a camera for the first time could make a gorgeous film with these sets and locations – it’s that generous. I hope the production designer, Osamu Yamaguchi, got all the awards for this. I doubt it, but I can hope.

Survive Style 5 is the sort of thing I look for and strive for in movies. Something where after watching it, I think to myself, “Wow, I’ve never seen anything like that before.” The search for stuff like that keeps my passion for movies alive. Even if this is a one-and-done for the director, even with its use of gay slurs being problematic and very early 00s. Even if it isn’t funny, I still love that this exists. Its energy, invention, cinematography and pop art abandon are sure to provoke a reaction. Even if you hate the movie, it shoots for the moon. It’s also a stealth Christmas movie too.

The extras from Third Window Films are slim, but that goes with the territory when you are talking about cult classics lost to oblivion. That they’ve got as much new as they have is very impressive, with new interviews with Gen Sekiguchi and writer Taku Tada (whose career is equally spare), there’s also an original making of. Beyond that, the extras are confined to the admittedly handsome artwork from Gokaiju, and the booklet featuring new writing from Simon Abrams. Let’s be honest though, this release existing on a modern format is all we ever needed, especially with its 4K presentation and remastered sound.

ROB’S ARCHIVE – SURVIVE STYLE 5