Tales of the Unusual

What if the ordinary cracked open to reveal the extraordinary, where chance encounters and hidden fears reshape fate? Tales of the Unusual, an anthology film from Japan, embraces this question with four distinct stories that weave together suspense, fantasy, and moral reflection.

Detailed and Analytical: Each segment offers a self-contained narrative, ranging from survival and love to guilt and the supernatural. The opening tale, set around a plane crash, highlights human instinct under extreme pressure, while subsequent stories delve into themes of obsession, karmic justice, and the fragile boundary between the rational and the uncanny. The anthology format allows for tonal diversity, though it also results in uneven pacing-some chapters feel tightly constructed while others stretch thin, losing narrative momentum.

The film's strength lies in its atmospheric direction and willingness to explore universal anxieties through everyday settings. Subtle cinematography and muted palettes heighten tension, while performances remain grounded, giving credibility to even the more fantastical elements. Symbolism plays an important role, turning objects and situations into moral tests for the characters. However, the lack of a strong connective thread between stories limits the overall cohesion, making the experience feel more like a collection than a unified vision.

6/10 - Tales of the Unusual stands as an intriguing anthology that captures the unpredictability of human nature under extraordinary circumstances. While uneven in execution, it offers a mix of suspense and reflection that lingers beyond its final frame, rewarding patient viewers with flashes of unsettling insight.

This Japanese anthology is something of their own version of Twilight Zone; from its narrator to the way each story is presented.

A group of people find themselves stuck on a train station waiting for the heavy rainfall to stop. A mysterious stranger suddenly shows up and offers to tell them different stories. Now, I expected these stories to contain horror, comedy, or a mix of both. Turns out only the first story (out of four, not including the wraparound segment) is somewhat horror-adjacent. The other three are mainly sci-fi tinged comedic dramas.

Whatever their genre, the stories themselves are nothing to write home about. Some have surprising twists, others are quirky and whimsical, but overall each one of them leaves something to be desired. They mostly last about 30 minutes and still manage to feel sluggish and slow. They're sporadically entertaining if you can vibe with the film's light hearted nature. However, I must praise the audio-visual presentation, as the film looks really good with surprisingly elaborate sets at times and some larger-than-life soundtrack choices.

Overall, this was watchable, but not quite impressive enough to be easily recommended. Only for anthology film completionists.

A group huddling from the rain in a railway station listen to a set of weird tales told by a strange man whose identity is never revealed:

Tale 1: Four people trapped in the snow leave an injured fifth to die. (Sort of; the situation is more complicated but amounts to the same thing.) They take refuge in a cabin for the night...but it appears someone else is in there with them.

Tale 2: A royal minister in medieval Japan finds a cell phone and gets a call from a historical researcher of the future wanting to find out if the coup the minister is heading will happen as the history books say. In fact he's a coward who doesn't want to get involved...but the phone call makes him think again.

Tale 3: A chess master is defeated by a supercomputer and is so devastated that he becomes a raving derelict. A millionaire finds him and lures him into a chess game that he says governs the outside world. The chess master sees people dressed in black and white on a giant grid, when a piece is captured a man dies, etc. He's committed to a mental institution...but the visions don't stop.

Tale 4: An engaged couple visit a marriage bureau that gives them a VR preview of what their married life will be like. It's a horror, and they break up...but is that the end or not?

The tales all have interesting but faulty premises, each of which leaves something important unexplained. The first one is the best (also, incidentally, it's the only one that's a horror story, which I'd expected them all to be); the second looks like an episode of Spielberg's "Amazing Stories"; the third is the most interesting but the least credible (and I wonder if the idea was swiped from Cervantes); the fourth is Japanese soap opera (which I happen to like). The actors are good, the production is slick, and to me quite Western-looking, and there are a few wonderful images (e.g. a ghost on a wall, a woman dressed as a chess piece)...but it needed better stories.

"Yonimo Kimyou na Monogatari" (or however you subdivide the title) appears to be, from the cover art, another of those popular Japanese horror flicks, a la "Ringu", "Tomie", et al. Well, that's only about 25% right. Unfortunately, the creepy cover art initially led me to overlook this title, despite its comparison to one of my favourite vintage TV shows, Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone". Upon closer examination, however, I must admit the concept of "Keitai Chushingura" convinced me to purchase the DVD.

As detailed elsewhere, the movie consists of four short films tied together by a creepy guy (credited as "Tamori") in a bus station who tells stories to others stranded by a downpour. The first, "Yukiyama" is the horror entree, starring Yada Akiko ("Saimin", "Aishiteiru to Ittekure"), who does her best "Blair Witch Project" impression. Tense, a little confusing, but well done. I kept thinking of the Snow Demon in Kurosawa's "Dreams". "Keitai Chushingura" was initially my favourite, since it brought a hilarious twist to the time-honoured Bushido legend of the 47 Ronin of the Ako Clan. This time, Oishi is portrayed as a reluctant womanizing hero who has to be coerced into his historically relevant action by the promptings of a caller from 300 years in the future who's part of an "historical accuracy study" or something like that. Good stuff. "Chess" is a surreal, clever twist on the game which seems like it came right out of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Finally "Kekkon Simulator" was a totally non-creepy, neat little romantic story featuring Inamori Izumi ("Long Vacation", "Hito Natsu no Propose", "Ashita ga Aru sa!"), which was touching without being excessively weepy. The only letdown was perhaps the final short monologue from Tamori-san, but it in no way detracted from a fine film. NOTE: As of 12/2001, I believe there are only Region 2 & 3 versions available on DVD, both of which have English subs.

I loved this film. Unlike most "Twilight Zone" movies which focus too heavily on spooky scares, this gives you the full buffet table. There are four shorts: (1) horror, (2) comedy, (3) psychological drama, (4) romance.

I read about this film on IMDb while researching the career of Momoru Hosi, who did the 3rd segment "Chess". Momuru Hosi is a talented new director who has only done one other movie, UNIVERSITY OF LAUGHS, which I recommend very highly. His contribution "Chess" is by far my favourite of the 4. It creates a very surreal atmosphere pleasing to the eye, and at the same time it tells a profound allegory of human life. Great musical score, too. This short alone is worth the price of admission.

The other 3 were also very well done with fine acting, creative plots and vivid cinematography. One thing I love about Japanese cinema is the vivid use of colours, perspective and graceful camera motion. (This is the opposite of American "reality TV" where everything is bleached and flat, and the camera operators seem to be on crack.)

In all, you've got quite a spectrum to choose from. But of course that means that if you're expecting only one genre, you'll be disappointed for the other 3/4. These 4 films were purposely selected to be as different from each other as possible, and that's exactly what you get.

I should also mention that there's a 5th short which is the "envelope" story through which the other 4 are told. This itself is not to be underestimated. You'll just love the storyteller (who is a cross between Rod Serling and a creepy yakuza), and his message, though brief, is a profound one in the end.