Atrapados en un bucle infinito

Asian cinema. With pleasure. Not even 90 minutes. Absolutely.

The visuals are a journey back in time to the 90s of Asian cinema, especially because of the lighting.

To digress a little first: Scenes shown make a European somehow melancholy. Japan has preserved its traditions and culture, its identity. No alienation, er I mean "diversity" of course, no loss of values, quality of life and inner security through unpleasant religions or primitive origins. As if more and more pages are being torn out of a book that is hundreds of years old. Those who don't understand its written words, will never understand them, don't want to understand them or are generally illiterate, don't care.

Back to the point: The basic premise of the time loop is of course nothing new, but the extremely short two minutes here open up completely new possibilities for ideas. And the film is bursting with them. The entire running time is entertaining, consistently interesting, often funny, sometimes sad. Even for viewers with viewing habits that deviate from this cinematic origin, I think the film can be consumed without hesitation and offers a wonderful time in front of the screen.

I went into this movie completely blind thinking it was going to be a trashy horror movie. I'm so glad I was wrong.

The movie takes place within a 2 minute time loop, which you'd think is such a short time things would get boring after a while. But the chemistry between the charismatic actors and how they handle the strange situation is captivating. I especially liked how kind and good natured most people in the movie came across.

The only thing that kind of put me off a little bit was the strangeness of the ending, but honestly it wasn't that bad. Overall this was such a fun watch and I think everyone should give it a chance and be as pleasantly surprised as I was.

Mikoto (Riko Fujitani) works at a remote inn located in the mountains north of Kyoto, where she has congenial co-workers and usually pleasant customers. While gazing at the river bordering the inn one day, she suddenly finds that she and the other inhabitants of the inn have fallen into a "time loop," where every two minutes she is inexplicably back at the river as if the previous two minutes had never occurred! Fortunately one of the chefs at the inn was a "science major," and he goes to work at deducing the cause of the loop with the aim of restoring proper time to the inn; in the meantime, all of the people there must find ways to cope with their strange predicament....

Two years ago, Montreal's Fantasia Festival (online that year) showed "Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes," one of the most hilarious films about time loops ever made; "River" is director Junta Yamaguchi's bigger-budget follow-up, and like its predecessor it is both charming and hilarious for the entirety of its short (82-minute) length. I don't want to say more because the film should be experienced with no preconceptions, so let me just note that you are unlikely to find anything more visually beautiful, with more exquisite and perfect timing from both the actors and the scenarios being enacted, anywhere in this or any other universe. Highly, highly recommended!

No pun intended - the filmmaker himself made a video that we got to see before the movie (Weird Weekender Festival in Stuttgart). He admitted that he is good with .. time! And if you have seen Beyond infinite two minutes, you know he is not lying. The question is, if you want to watch a movie that is similar to that.

While this is good (added comedy I reckon) and still quite twisted in a sense, the former movie is a tiny bit better than this one. That said, you do get new and original ideas with this one. And maybe even an explanation why something happens ... to a specific group of people in a specific area ... we follow one character for most of the movie. That said, we do get to see a lot of people besides her.

There are some inconsistencies when it comes to logic (especially when we have a "hunt" going on), but with a movie and an idea like that it is better to suspend your disbelief.

This is a great little movie, a real gem and an absolute must watch wether you're into fantasy or science fiction or not, wether you're into japanese movies and culture or not. It is a movie done with a very small budget and small group of actors basically in one single location. The script is mostly hilarious and moving at times, so full of inventions and situations and the characters are all extremely well crafted. The direction is purely virtuosic. Basically each two minutes loop is a non stop sequence and each one of them is different from the other. I do not want to spoil any element as it's important to watch it without knowing anything more than the basic concept. Believe me, I do not write reviews very often and if I do it's for an extremely good reason.