Hayasaki is an inventor working on an Artificial Body. It is not going well and he is stressed out and on the verge of being fired from the research division of his company. His doppelgänger appears to help him out of the rut he has created for himself.
Doppelgänger, Dopperugengâ, 도플갱어, สัมผัสสยองเงียบ คนสองวิญญาณ, ドッペルゲンガー, 自视性幻觉
Japan
South Korea15
Japan
South Korea
Doppelganger is a film that I love that I intentionally avoid talking about because the experience of watching it was so strange and surprising to me that I rate few viewing experiences higher in my many film viewings. I want to retain the possibility that you too, dear reader, might experience something similar as I did, so I will be ambiguous and unspecific in my writing on this. I will say that I strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa before watching this film or the surprise won't land quite as well. I recommend Cure and Pulse as that is what I watched before seeing this film, but almost anything in his catalogue besides Bright Future…
On the evolving self. Meet your own limitations and the reinterpretation of you: not a stalker, a shadow. Slow release from the pressures of life in the unlikeliest of ethereal circumstance, attainability of harmony an uphill climb to the peak of necessary disharmony, accepting what must become. You don't want to face down what you will, but you must.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa comedy of self. A blunter and more playful take on Japanese identity crisis than Cure (whom this is the lightweight doppelganger). It is enlivening by a very committed Koji Yakusho performance and some good Kurosawa framing. I had forgotten how funny this one is.
You'll get used to it. You have no choice.
Definitely feels like a B-side to Cure, and maybe that'll work for you, and maybe it won't. I mainly just found this alright, had trouble getting behind the overall story and its characters. That said, there are at least some components of Doppelganger that I dug. I liked some of the various filmmaking techniques like split screens and clever editing to allow Yakusho's two characters to be on-screen at once. The changing aspects ratios and overall style was clear, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa has distinct style just from the two features of his that I've seen. The two performances from Koji Yakusho I also liked, reminding me of Adaptation in how it…
Kurosawa finds comedy in exposure where in other films he finds loneliness and despair. There's still horror, but I mean... if you've seen Pulse, Cure, Charisma, etc. then you may find this cathartic or even weirdly hopeful, by the time it's over. It's as if by subverting itself in every conceivable way, Doppelganger establishes feelings of doubt and paranoia and then inverts them, liberating itself and ideally its viewer, in some perhaps indescribable way. Kurosawa's heavy use of split screen demonstrates how he might've been inspired by Body Double or other De Palma. A unique film I'd recommend, but probably not until you've seen at least a couple of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's better known movies.
chose this from kurosawa's filmography somewhat at random so it's weird that it ended up being a sort of remix of the only other of his i've seen, cure, where the horror villain is actually seeing yourself, but this is an entirely different creature - if cure is about the terror of your true inner self than this is about the humiliating absurdity of existing, and even though i found this a little more impenetrable than cure narratively, and i couldn't help feeling there was some huge obvious piece i couldn't see, formally this was a pure delight - the split screens, the costumes, the claustrophobic spaces, the way that the man and his mirror image would be onscreen together…
The concept of the doppelgänger is inherently unheimlich and unsettling, but horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa takes the unexpected road and plays with it for laughs. Sort of. I mean, it starts with a suicide and has some of that creeping Kiyoshi atmosphere, so it’s not a straight up comedy by any means. These tonal shifts make for a quite intriguing film and Koji Yakusho’s dual performances are always captivating. We seldom know which Yakusho we’re watching, which isn’t only pretty effective for creating tension but also for asking questions about identity and if we can ever know ourselves. This cannot fully save the film from its meandering middle act. The final act is quite fun in its absurdity but goes in some pretty unexpected directions. Although this might be thematically fitting, Doppenganger comes off as a film which never quite seems to know what it wants to be, which makes for a rather unfocused watching experience.
Following my watches of Japan's second film genius named Kurosawa's Cure and Pulse, here is something entirely different. Despite a narrative concept about the mysterious appearance of a man's doppelganger, which could carry a horror film, Kurosawa tries his hand at something much lighter. The results are interesting yet mixed, certainly lesser than his best known efforts, but not without merit.
To be clear, there's no shortage of good ideas here. The protagonist of Doppelganger is a genius inventor struggling to perfect his next big work -- a mobile chair with two robotic arms that can move and mimic the human body purely through thoughts, an enormous breakthrough in assisting individuals without full use of any limbs. The machine works;…
Kiysohi Kurosawa uses black comedy to his advantage to depict two distinct personalities.This would make for a terrific triple billing along with Aparan(1988) and The Double(2013).Also great use of split screens.Wish the pacing wasn't sluggish tho
