A lone man meanders through the seemingly empty streets of Tokyo on his scooter. Garbage is strewn in the streets; cars are abandoned; there is not a soul in sight. That is, except at a strange little record shop. The man seems annoyed that the owner, a strange and exceedingly calm man would open his store on the day a comet is racing towards the Earth, inevitably causing its destruction. The young man is not concerned; he knows that an obscure Japanese punk song from the 1970s will save the world. And so begins Fish Story, a seemingly disparate tale told over several times periods and unrelated people, only to show a strange butterfly effect in the climax.
The film has been making the rounds at various film festivals for almost a year, and deservedly so. There is something of the great bizarre film Funky Forest in this piece. Not that Fish Story is nearly as confusing, but more that there is logic behind it all that only someone of that culture can understand. Director Yoshihiro Nakamura creates a genre-bending film from a novel by Kotaro Isaka that is comedic, dramatic, supernatural, action-packed, and probably most of all a film about music and how even the most obscure music can reach far beyond its original tiny listening audience.
