Riding the Metro (地下鐵に乘って) (Chinese title: "Passing Through Space-Time Subway")

I have no idea what attracted me to rent this DVD when I saw it at Blockbusters. Sure, it's a Japanese film, and I prefer Japanese culture to Chinese, but I've seen my share of dissatisfying Japanese films. Everything was in Chinese, so I couldn't read a smidge of what the movie was about. I only figured out the Chinese title afterwards. The English title, a direct translation of the Japanese, was obscure on the cover and there was nothing particularly attractive about it. It was a 'hail Mary' rental. How bad could it be?

Turns out it is one of those "out there" Japanese films which had a lot of potential but dropped the ball in so many places. It introduces a father character that you hate from the first moment you see him and then tries to draw sympathy for him later on. It opens up a device which allows for transformation or catharsis and then doesn't use it. It has a twist that might be regarded as a revelation, but doing the math, which the movie doesn't do at all, you end up with (wtf?) incest!

Trying not to spoil anything, but the "ring" thing would have fit better and made more sense about 10 minutes or so later. It's the little things like this that disappoint me. I want this film to be so much more than it is.

On the other hand, it's watchable, and it's only when I started thinking about it that I started being dissatisfied. I watched it twice through with no problem, so the pacing is fine and it's not disinteresting visually. The concept is intriguing enough, even though it makes no sense.

It's about a Japanese salaryman who finds himself being transported back in time to different periods of his estranged father's life (he legally separated from his father after his older brother's death, which he blames on his father). It doesn't make sense how this happens, there's no logic to it – although I'm a forgiving viewer, I didn't need logic. But I needed a reason for this gimmick, I needed connections, catharsis or revelation.

Like in "Field of Dreams", what happened didn't make sense, it wasn't logical, but we got a huge revelation and catharsis at the end. We got meaning. We got baseball. In "Riding the Metro", we get emotions, but they don't get attached to the people or their relationships, and that's what I think the movie needed to do.

I wouldn't not recommend this film, but with a caveat. Fans of Japanese film might still enjoy it. 5 out of 10 tomatoes.

The one fantastic thing that came to me from this film is that the end credit song Platform introduced me to singer Salyu, who has such an incredible emotional range. Highly recommend checking her out.