Gyarakushî kaidou

This charming, simple, but complexly-written movie is a great answer to those questions: What happens in "The Hitchhiker's Guide Restaurant at the End of the Universe" on a slow night? and What happens in "The Star Wars Cantina in Mos Eisley" when they are not filming a new installment? Demonstrates once again that good science fiction movies DO NOT require galactic budgets, just extraterrestrial imagination.

By an intergalactic road, which is now pretty defunct due to its rival broader expressway, lies a hamburger joint, managed by a husband and wife and an eccentric cook. Like the intergalactic road now serving to only a few alien specimen and that is subjected to an inspection for demolition, the restaurant is getting more and more desolated with every passing day. Also, relationship of husband and wife is also in question, challenged by old and new lovers.

Film basically adds intergalactic prostitution, love triangles, and tiny bits of masochism and food porn into 1950's American future depictions. Its roots in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Caro- Jeunet inventions are pretty visible yet not annoying at all.

Film's solutions to otherwise complicated technical problems are simple, smooth and funny. And invented in same manner, contains bunch of imaginative aliens and entities (also dilemma of Captain socks) that are good to see.

Upon seeing the poor rating for this film, I was very surprised since I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was engaging and hilarious with good character development. Some people may call it strange at times, but for me that is part of its charm (And, no, I'm not one of those hipsters who likes weird things merely because they are weird). I would realistically give it an 8, but since other people have rated it so harshly without even leaving a review, I will do the opposite.