Japan 2015: a virus called the Lemming Syndrome is killing large parts
of teh populace, & it seems to drive those infected to suicide. All
the while though, noise musicians Mizui (Tadanobu Asano) & Asuhara
(Masaya Nakahara) couldn't care less, as they live in some godforsaken
place collecting noises & turning them into noise music.
However, rich man Miyagi's (Yasutaka Tsutsui) granddaughter Hana (Aoi
Miyazaki) suffers from the leming syndrome, too, so he has tied her up to
prevent her from committing suicide, & has hired private eye Natsuishi
(Masahiro Toda) to find him something to cure the girl ... & the
detective comes up with some curious fact: Those who have listened to the
music of the group Stepin Fetchit (a hommage to the black comedian f the
1930's) seem to be immune against the syndrome, & Stepin Fetchit are
Mizui & Asuhara.
Soon, the detective has picked up the musicians' trail, & has
trailed them down to Navi's (Mariko Okada) diner they visit irregularly.
Soon he takes Miyagi & Hana there & arranges for them to meet
Mizui & Asuhara ... & Miyagi begs them to play for her daughter to
cure her.
The musicians claim to know about the power of their music - especially
since Asuhara himself suffers from the symptom - but claim they
can't really cure anyone, only delay the actual death ... & they
outrightly refuse to help Miyagi & Hana - which ends in an argument,
at the end of which Asuhara rushes out ... & a short time later Mizui
finds he has hanged himself ...
At Asuhara' s funeral, Miyagi can finally persuade Mizui to help Hana,
& soon enough Mizui plays for the girl giving his last, until both he
& her break down ... but she seems to be healed.
Back at the diner Miyagi tells Navi about his granddaughter's fate,
that she had to watch both ehr mother & her father kill themselves
because of the syndrome, & he decides it is best to get out of Hana's
life altogether for her own sake, & leave her with Navi - to which
Navi, since there's noone else around most of the time anyways,
wholeheartedly agrees.
When Miyagi & the detective drive home, the detective all of a
sudden stops the car, gets out & shoots himself ...
The plot might sound somewhat intriguing & bizarre, however in the
actual film way to much time is spent showing the musicians collecting
noises, distorting them & making noise music, which is after a time
quite tiring. But in all fairness, if I had more of an idea about noise
music as such, I might think quite differently.
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