Explaining the Meaning Behind Japan’s Craziest Comedy
Director: Gen Sekiguchi
Cast: Tadanobu Asano, Kyôko Koizumi, Ittoku Kishibe, Hiroshi Abe, YosiYosi Arakawa
Related Films: Taste of Tea, Kamikaze Girls, Symbol, Love Exposure, Tampopo,
Studio: Tohokushinsha Film
Year: 2004
Verdict: 5.5/6
Survive Style 5+ built on Japan’s rich tradition of quirky filmmaking, cranked the weirdness up to eleven and earned its place as one of the best Japanese comedies ever made. Abroad, it became an instant cult classic, while in Japan, it remains an underground phenomenon to this day.
Describing Survive Style 5+ to a newcomer is about as easy as teaching a dog algebra. But here goes: imagine the five wildest Japanese TV commercials you’ve ever seen, mashed together with a script as bizarre as the most outlandish Haruki Murakami novel.
At first glance, the story is as nonsensical as Salvador Dalí’s Autumnal Cannibalism. But as it unfolds, it turns equally macabre and ingeniously crafted. Like the works of Murakami and Dalí, Survive Style 5+ possesses an indescribable, magnetic allure.
It’s like a trainwreck you simply cannot look away from. Chaos reigns, yet it all somehow makes sense. In fact, nothing in Survive Style 5+ is coincidental—especially its striking resemblance to Japanese TV commercials.
Contents:
Gen Sekiguchi’s Five-Fold Commercial Concept
First and foremost, it’s worth noting that Sekiguchi is an adman himself. Survive Style 5+ represents his only full-length foray into the film industry. Aside from this singular feature and a handful of shorts, his career has been predominantly centered on directing TV commercials.
Clearly, it’s no coincidence that one of the five storylines in Survive Style 5+ centers on a TV ad producer—Yoko—magnificently portrayed by Kyôko Koizumi. While the significance of this segment might seem to drown in the overall madness, it serves as the film’s linchpin in more ways than one.
Within the narrative, Yoko is the catalyst for everything that unfolds across the five storylines. She’s the one who decides to hire a contract killer and insists the agency bring in a foreigner to do the job.
This single decision triggers a domino effect: the hypnotist is assassinated mid-show, leaving a family man permanently trapped in hypnosis. Moreover, the foreign hitman’s visit ripples into the lives of the three hoodlum boys and the man whose wife keeps rising from the dead, no matter how many times he kills her.
We’ll get back to the plot in a moment, but Gen Sekiguchi’s commercial angle deserves more attention. It goes far beyond Yoko’s role as the narrative catalyst; not only does it underpin Survive Style 5+’s premise, but it also informs every element of its filmmaking.
Like the Japanese TV commercials that captivate audiences abroad, Survive Style 5+ is a kaleidoscopic spectacle. Every aspect of the film—costume design, set design, cinematography, and sound—is excessive to an almost absurd degree.
Even the casting, acting, and dialogue are so outrageously over the top that they should, by all logic, collapse under their own weight. And yet, all these pieces of excess come together seamlessly, resulting in a stroke of genius that stands the test of time. Much of this brilliance is owed to the stellar cast and Taku Tada’s sharp, inspired script.
So, what does it all mean? What message could a Japanese ad man possibly hope to convey by transforming their craft into a two-hour rollercoaster of a film? Before tackling this question, let’s pause to untangle the plot and—hopefully—bring the level of confusion down a notch.
Survive Style 5+ Synopsis | Organized Chaos
The first time you watch Survive Style 5+, the message probably won’t even cross your mind. Trying to follow the story is like solving a Rubik’s cube while sprinting through Shibuya Crossing… on acid. So, let’s break it down.
As mentioned, the film weaves together five central storylines that seem completely unrelated at first glance yet are tightly intertwined. To up the ante, the timeline is non-linear, jumping back and forth to create even more delightful chaos.
Storyline Number 1: The Dude Who Can’t Kill His Wife
It all begins with a cool dude (Tadanobu Asano) living in an effortlessly stylish hipster house and grappling with an unusual problem—he can’t kill his wife (Reika Hashimoto). No matter how many times he murders and buries her in the woods, she rises from the grave and returns home to beat him senseless.
After trying (and failing) to club, stab, burn, and mutilate her, he finally gives up and seeks help from a professional hitman. Enter a wicked British contract killer (Vinnie Jones), who agrees to handle the job for a mere ¥10,000.
Storyline Number 2: The Headstrong Ad-Lady and Her Hypnotist Lover
Next, we meet Yoko, a fierce ad exec whose boyfriend happens to be a self-absorbed hypnotist. When his antics push her too far, she hires a hitman to ensure his descent from fame… straight into the grave.
Meanwhile, Yoko’s headstrong attitude is on full display when she clashes with a corporate bigwig (Sonny Chiba), boldly critiquing his commercial ideas. Her own ad pitches, showcased hilariously throughout the movie, are pure comedic gold.
Storyline Number 3: The Nuclear Family Whose Father Turns Into a Chicken
Then there’s the nuclear family of four. During a hypnotist show, the father is pulled on stage and hypnotized into believing he’s a bird. Before the hypnotist can undo the trick, he’s assassinated by—you guessed it—a hitman.
Stuck in a birdlike state, the father spends his days flapping around, trying to fly away from his family. Doctors and researchers, more curious than helpful, marvel at his condition while the family struggles to find normalcy.
Storyline Number 4: The Three Hoodlums Who Explore Their Sexuality
Next, we have three young hoodlums who look more like Harajuku fashionistas than burglars. While robbing the nuclear family’s home, two of them hide in a closet—both literally and figuratively suppressing their feelings for each other.
Later, while unwinding in a sauna, the jokester of the trio antagonizes a strange foreigner, leading to a quarrel. The altercation ends with one of the hoodlums protecting his friend, getting stabbed, and ultimately coming out of the proverbial closet.
Storyline Number 5: The Hitman Agency and Their Foreign Contract Killer
Finally, we have the British hitman who comes to Japan to work as an independent contractor, whacking Japanese people on demand. Having little knowledge of the Japanese language or culture, he is followed everywhere he goes by a worker from the hitman agency.
Though completely out of his element, the foreign hitman does his job to the T while raising a question that might give us a clue as to what Survive Style 5+ is all about. Whoever he is hired to kill is met with the same question: “What is your purpose in life?”
Survive Style 5+ Analysis | What is your function in life?
Whether it's a celebration or a critique, it's fairly evident that Sekiguchi is commenting on Japanese commercialism. If anything, Survive Style 5+ is a display of excess. Every aspect of the film is purposefully overdone, and no details are overlooked.
Having spent five years in Japan myself, I can safely say that capitalism permeates Japanese society in unique ways. As strong as consumerism stands in America or my native Norway, it doesn't quite compare to the culture of spending I encountered in Japan.
What sets Japan apart, in my experience, is a cultural inclination toward shared comforts and routines, perhaps more so than in America or Norway. Everyone seems to fill their lives with the same comforts, which is perfectly reflected in the excessive advertisements on TV.
If Yoko the ad-lady is the movie's linchpin, then the nuclear family living in a typical Japanese home—leading regular Japanese lives and buying all the consumer goods a good family "should"—is the keystone to the underlying message.
When they stray from normalcy and forgo their responsibilities for one night, they're not rewarded but slammed with the worst kind of bad luck imaginable. Making matters even worse, instead of helping these faithful consumers, society only wants to capitalize on their misfortune by studying the father rather than fixing him.
The Japanese Minimalism-Maximalism Dichotomy
It’s ironic that Japan is famous for minimalism. Yet minimalism seems mostly absent in Japanese daily life, aside from its presence in art forms like painting, calligraphy, woodcuts, zen gardens, and food presentation.
In Europe, Japanese minimalist interior design has been in vogue for decades. However, during my time in Japan, I rarely encountered minimalist homes. More often, I saw the opposite—spaces packed with items, from shops and restaurants to personal living spaces.
Shopping in Japan is extraordinary, and indulgence is commonplace. It’s a society built for spending. People work tirelessly, often late into the night, and their reward is access to everything they could want—and far more than they could ever need.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Japanese minimalism emerged as a counterpoint to this culture of maximalism, which is as prevalent on Japanese TV as it is in daily life.
Japanese TV shows are saturated with product placement. Cooking and travel programs promote local industries, while variety shows often dedicate large portions to food tasting. And this is only scratching the surface.
But let’s focus on the commercials, which are arguably the most creative content on Japanese TV.
The Pervasive Power of Promotion
It’s no coincidence that Japanese commercials often go viral worldwide, exploding across social media. Japan’s advertising industry is fiercely competitive and frighteningly effective—an industry Gen Sekiguchi knows intimately.
Drawing from his experience, Sekiguchi poured its essence into Survive Style 5+. In many ways, the film is a counterpoint to Japanese cinema itself, where many masters have embraced minimalism.
Filmmakers like Kenji Mizoguchi, Masaki Kobayashi, Mikio Naruse, and more recently, Hirokazu Kore-eda embody a restrained, elegant style I’ve come to call “Japanese Cinimalism.”
Survive Style 5+ is the antithesis of this paradigm. While the cinematography remains polished, its aesthetic is unabashedly maximalist. Sekiguchi fully commits to a world of excess, prompting one question: What is it all for?
The Cost of Excess
Japan’s relentless focus on consumption and perfection has produced some of the finest things on Earth. From masterfully crafted food and pottery to furniture, swords, jeans, and even films, Japanese artisans’ dedication is second to none.
But what happens to us as humans when consumerism takes over our lives? What do we become when we succumb to the allure of advertisements and goods? What, ultimately, becomes our function in life?
This is the heart of Survive Style 5+. It’s not merely a commentary on rampant capitalism—it’s a symptom of it. The film’s characters are too consumed to realize that their lives revolve around excess. All they can do is fight to survive before the capitalist machine completely devours them.
Survive Style 5+ in the Japanese Film Canon
Survive Style 5+ is more than a quirky, chaotic masterpiece—it’s a loving nod to the Japanese neo-new-wave movement of the 1970s. The film doesn’t just pay homage; it actively engages with and reinvents the stylistic hallmarks of that era.
The echoes of trailblazing filmmakers like Nagisa Oshima and Juzo Itami are unmistakable. Much like their work, Survive Style 5+ challenges its audience to consider the boundaries of film as both a medium and an art form.
Where Oshima explored provocative themes and societal taboos with sharp intellectualism, and Itami blended biting satire with accessible, grounded narratives, Sekiguchi spins these influences into a frenzy.
Survive Style 5+ doesn’t just critique modern consumerism; it revels in its absurdity, reflecting and amplifying the eccentricities of contemporary Japanese culture. The result is a film that is playful, chaotic, and deeply self-aware, blending the intellectual legacy of its predecessors with the bold creativity of its time.
By the mid-2000s, Japanese cinema had embraced a more experimental, audacious edge, with directors like Takashi Miike and Sion Sono gaining international acclaim for their wild, unpredictable storytelling. Sekiguchi channels this energy while staying firmly rooted in the aesthetics and intellectualism of his cinematic predecessors.
Interestingly, Survive Style 5+ also shares faint parallels with J-horror, a genre that dominated Japanese cinema during the early 2000s. While the film is undeniably a comedy, its treatment of the supernatural—particularly the endlessly resurrecting wife—feels like a tongue-in-cheek nod to horror tropes.
The wife’s repeated resurrections, her eerie calmness, and her unstoppable revenge echo the vengeful spirits of classic J-horror, such as Sadako in Ringu or Kayako in Ju-on.
However, Sekiguchi flips the script, turning what could be a terrifying premise into a darkly comedic spectacle. This subtle interplay between horror and humor adds yet another layer of depth to the film, showcasing Sekiguchi’s mastery of genre blending.
By tipping its hat to the neo-new-wave while embracing the chaotic energy of its own time, Survive Style 5+ carves out a unique place in Japanese film history. It stands as both a tribute and a reinvention, capturing the essence of what makes Japanese cinema so compelling: its willingness to experiment, provoke, and defy expectations.
Sekiguchi doesn’t just honor his predecessors—he pushes their ideas further, crafting a film that is as thought-provoking as it is wildly entertaining. Survive Style 5+ isn’t just a quirky masterpiece; it’s a bold statement about Japanese cinema's past, present, and future.
Final Verdict | Survive Style 5+ Review
Survive Style 5+ is a stroke of genius that deserves far more recognition than it has received. Its sheer creativity—though undeniably over the top—is as dazzling and electrifying as Japanese TV ads and quirky comedies at their best.
Add to that a stellar script, an ensemble cast delivering magnificent performances, and hilariously sharp comedic punchlines, and you have an unforgettable film.
What truly sets Survive Style 5+ apart is its ability to control its chaos. The film masterfully builds tension, keeping viewers on the edge of their seats while reveling in its absurdity.
A common pitfall of many Japanese new-wave or neo-new-wave films is that their innovation can occasionally feel excessive—avant-garde for the sake of being avant-garde. That’s not the case here.
At first glance, the storytelling in Survive Style 5+ might seem confusing or haphazard, but there’s nothing unnecessary in its two-hour runtime. Every frame has a purpose (in life), and every scene contributes to a tightly woven narrative hidden beneath layers of wild creativity.
This meticulous storytelling gives Survive Style 5+ immense replay value. It stands the test of time, revealing new details and layers with every viewing. Even if you never fully grasp the story’s “gist,” each piece is entertaining in its own right.
Ultimately, Survive Style 5+ isn’t just a quirky masterpiece—it’s a mirror reflecting the absurdities of modern life. Through its characters’ struggles, the film critiques our endless cycles of work and consumption, asking: are we truly living, or are we simply surviving?