Of the 16 or so films that I saw at this year’s Fantasia Fest, one of my favorites was writer/director Shinobu Yaguchi’s Robo-G, a quirky and comical drama about a man pretending to be a robot.
Ota, Kobayashi and Nagai are working hard on a robot for their company, Kimura Electrical Company, but a few days before their presentation at a robotics expo and due to their terrible instincts, their robot throws itself out the window, committing robo suicide, shattering all hope of making that deadline. In a desperate attempt to save face, the trio decides to audition people for the role of the robot, placing them inside the metal until they can make a new and functioning replacement.
When a grumpy, attention-seeking old man named Suzuki (Mickey Curtis aka Shinjiro Igarashi) comes across the ad, he decides to audition for the role thinking it might help him connect with his family. Though 73 years old and due to a hiccup with another individual’s inability to play the robot, Suzuki gets the part and takes to the stage at the robotics expo. Rather than be ridiculed as boring, Suzuki decides to make the most of it and starts to do un-robot like moves, having a dance off with another robot and eventually saving a girl, named Yoko, from being killed. From that moment on, Yoko becomes obsessed with New Shiokaze (aka Suzuki) while the media can’t get enough of seeing what else this robot can do, hailing the trio who built it as robotics geniuses.
Though Robo-G claims to be a drama with a lot of comedic elements, I see it more as a tender comedy with a few strong dramatic elements. The movie is really funny. There are a handful of laugh-out-loud moments and anytime Suzuki is either in his robot suit or interacting with the three engineers and behaving like a diva, you’re always going to find yourself smiling. Additionally, if you keep in mind that part of the film is about Suzuki trying to win his family back over, Robo-G becomes the geriatric Japanese version of Mrs. Doubtfire, which should help give you some kind of context about the level of comedy vs. drama, an overall constant source of entertainment.
As mentioned above, one part of the film is about Suzuki coming to terms with how he appears to his family and people in the public, the other part of the film is about the engineers trying to keep the lies going, hiding the truth from their boss, who is very proud of them, and the media who starts to speculate that the robot might be a fraud. Tack on the girl Yoko, a top robotics research student who is infatuated
with Suzuki and would do anything to study it, and you’ve got a web of stories that evidently have to collide head-on, with the possibility of dreams and careers being shattered. With a web of deceit this strong, it’s only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose and people realize that their actions will have consequences.
Besides having a great script, a lot of praise has to go to the actors and their touching performances, especially Shinjiro Igarashi. None of the characters are overbearing, though it may seem so at times, and as a result we get these emotional and comedic performances that feel nearly raw and very honest. I found myself emotionally invested in every character for the simple fact that they all had something very important to lose, be it family or reputation. Yaguchi weaves the characters together so well that every action ends up having a major impact on the other characters which helps drive the story down an interesting road.
From start to finish, Robo-G is nothing short of a great time. Both poignant and hilarious, this fantastic feel good film blends a variety of different comedic styles together, never loosing track of its core story and always keeping the dramatic elements intimate, relevant and intact. The film concludes with a clever and heartfelt ending that ties up most loose ends while leaving the audience with a fun and open ended twist to dwell on.
Rating: An intelligent and surefire crowd pleaser that’ll leave you with nothing but a smile on your face (8.3/10)
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