Adrenaline Drive (Adorenarin doraibu) (NR) No Rating

A new film by Shinobu Yaguchi. Yaguchi's romantic comedy is nicely paced with one zany mishap leading the next in a surprising and entertaining string of absurd events.

Satoru (Masanobu Ando) is a young, timid Japanese man who has the misfortune of working for some schmuck in charge of a car rental agency. Satoru is forced to chauffer the man around a busy, large, unnamed Japanese city. Feeling a little cocky, the boss from hell gets the bright idea to cover Satoru's eyes as he attempts to navigate the streets in a moving vehicle. Inevitably, Satoru crashes the car. Unfortunately for him, his boss books, and Satoru is left with a facing the unamused mob boss, Kuroiwa (Yutaka Matushige).

In a turn of events, Satoru ends up with Kuroiwa's bag of dirty of money, solving Satoru's first problem, paying for the car damages.

When Kuroiwa's headquarters blow up, killing much of his posse and leaving him near dead, Satoru believes he is on easy street. He teams up with Shizuko (Hikari Ishida) a young, shy nurse. They seize the opportunity to split. The two escape to a mountain resort hideaway and predictably, yet romantically register as husband and wife.

The glasses clad, bashful nurse has now transformed into somewhat of a looker. Shizuko is realizing how nice it would be to have both the money and Satoru. Just as love starts to bloom, Kuroiwa's henchmen come for the duo. The tragically inept hooligans are ready to take back their money and eliminate Satoru and Shizuko from the picture permanently. Adding a refreshing twist to the lovers-on-the-run plot, the brutes are played by the comedy troupe Jovi.

The movie is subtitled which gives the audience the opportunity to read Yaguchi's witty dialogue. Whether or not they budding young lovers end up rich and together, or poor and apart, they have both journeyed beyond their shy and reserved old selves. Even if only for a moment they are multi-dimensional people who can hold their own in he world

This show is not yet rated.

Cast:

Hikari Ishida: Shizuko Sato

Masanobu Ando: Satoru Suzuki

Yutaka Matushige: Kuroiwa

Jovi Jova: Kuroiwa's hooligans

A Shooting Gallery release of an Adrenaline Drive Committee/Kindai Eiga Kyokai Co./Gaga Communications/There's Enterprise/Nippon Shuppan Hanbai production. Writer-director-editor Shinobu Yaguchi. Producers Kiyoshi Mizokami, Kenichi Itaya, Tomohiro Kobayashi. Cinematographer Takashi Hamada. Music Seiichi Yamamoto. Art director Yoshio Yamada. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes.