There are some directors I just have a hard time engaging with, no matter how beloved they may generally be. Between Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, and even Ingmar Bergman I've loved some of their pictures, and hated others; worse, I've felt decidedly indifferent toward some, or at best liked them, but didn't get anything from them. Much the same goes for Oshima Nagisa. I've loved some of his films ('Empire of passion'), and others ('Double suicide: Japanese summer') just didn't leave much of a mark. Add 'Three resurrected drunkards' to the latter group. I appreciate the suggested commentary, the skills of all involved, and the intended comedy. I simply don't believe any of these qualities actually meet their potential, and the resulting viewing experience is at best just rather middling.
To the extent that the movie carries a message with its examination of the poor treatment to which immigrants are subjected - represented in the core idea of the Japanese protagonists being mistaken for Koreans - the premise is countermanded in part by all the other bits and bobs that are casually tossed in along the way, and definitely by the inclusion of a Korean character who is more or less antagonistic. In its very last minutes that messaging comes to the fore, but in a manner so heavy-handed as to break with what the piece has been doing for the entire rest of its length. There are some clever ideas in here that may have been ripe for comedy, but by one means or another they fail to evoke the desired reaction: because the tone is too soft, because the comedic timing is off, or often because the bit just isn't clever enough to earn a laugh. The nearest this comes to being funny is at various points in the latter half as the same sequence of events plays out in a more absurd way, but that's still not enough, especially as the whole begins to feel overlong and tiresome. Other odds and ends are clearly of a more somber nature befitting a "comedy-drama," but the attempted comedy works against these beats. Meanwhile, though I recognize the capabilities represented in the acting, cinematography, music, sound, costume design, stunts and effects, and so on, I just have a hard time caring about these facets when the substance of the feature falls flat.
Oshima has been included in a group of filmmakers pinged as the "Japanese New Wave." Like the "French New Wave," however, and other art movements - Impressionism, Expressionism, Modernism, Romanticism, Parallel Cinema, Neo- or Hyper- or Post-Whateverism, and so on ad infinitum - the label is meaninglessly non-descriptive. Oh yes, I discern some similarities of "New Wave" style, but it's a style that in my view is extraordinarily hit or miss, and in and of itself carries no special influence or importance. As the title fails to impress in any other capacity, that label is just an empty word.
No doubt this hits all the right notes for some folks, and some viewers will find 'Three resurrected drunkards' to be riotously funny or deeply impactful. I'm not one of those viewers. I don't specifically regret checking it out, but it's my belief that the flick fails to say, do, or be any of what it was meant to, and the sum total is ultimately very so-so and undistinguished. By the time the end credits roll, it feels like we've been sitting for longer than eighty minutes, and my already humdrum favor is further diminished. Watch if you want, and may you find it more valuable than I did; I think my time would have been better spent elsewhere.
