The first film I screened at this year’s Japan Cuts festival was Toshiaki Toyoda’s I’m Flash! Which stars Battle Royale lead Tatsuya Fujiwara as Rui Yoshino, a charismatic leader of a religious cult called “Life is Beautiful.” As a famous, rich and cocky man, the women love him and end up treating him like some sort of god. One night, while at a bar showing off his dart skills, he meets a woman named Rumi (Kiko Mizuhara) and the two take off for a drunken car ride. All is not what it seems though as eventually the two get into a car accident, killing a motorcyclist, leaving Rumi in a coma and, amazingly Rui walks away physically unscathed but in deep trouble and emotionally scarred. Under the orders of the Church’s business leaders, aka Rui’s mother and sister, he is sent to an island with three gangster looking bodyguards who must watch him at all times as he goes about his daily routine in his hideaway and princely mansion.
I’ve been finding it hard to put into words what happens in this movie and the type of reaction it should invoke because I felt absolutely nothing (except annoyed during the scene in the spoiler paragraph below). For a film where not much seemingly goes on, there is a lot that does happen on a deeper level and that is where the film gains my respect but it doesn’t mean I enjoyed it. I found it hard to care about any of the characters because our lead didn’t do anything to redeem himself and the other characters were just people motivated by money and reputation which means there is honestly nobody to like at all. When you watch a movie and find yourself not caring about anyone and all the main character seems to do is preach and go spear fishing then it’s difficult for me to call it entertaining, thought provoking or something even worth watching.
It’s hard for me to tell if I’m Flash! is supposed to be a philosophical film because of all the religious anecdotes, the focus on life and death, the debate about how we spend our time here on earth and the other B.S. teachings that Rui spits or writes about or if we’re supposed to just simply focus on the psychological aspect of the car crash on Rui and how his now off-kilter demeanor effects everyone around him and the consequences it may have. While I’m tempted to go with the latter option, there was very little to excite me as an audience member when thinking about the psychological aspects and implications of Rui’s actions, which makes me want to call this ambiguous film a failure, though I don’t think it completely is.
I did have one major issue with the film and that was its depiction of Rui as 
some sort of immortal. MINOR SPOILER I can let the car crash slide where he walks away without any injuries but what I can’t fathom is how an assassin misses all of his attempted shots on Rui when he is a maximum of eight feet away. This bothered me so much that it was downright offensive, particularly because there are other moments in the film that show Rui is in fact a mortal. There are two things that could have happened, either director Toyoda was trying to show the godly aspect of Rui by allowing him to survive yet again or the assassin was purposely missing and willing to die as a failed assassin for reasons unknown. This bothered me for the rest of the movie END SPOILER.
I’m Flash! is a film that has left me unevenly torn. On one hand I respect the film for what I think it set out to accomplish, but on the other hand I could never recommend this movie to anyone as I believe it’d be a waste of time and they’d never listen to my recommendations again. I’ve never seen any of Toshiaki Toyoda’s previous work but I have a feeling that this is probably not going to be remembered as one of his better films.
Rating: Slow, deliberate and attempts to keep you thinking, but it’s actual level of interest is low making you care less as the movie goes on (4.6/10)
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