"Tokyo 10+01" comes from director Higuchinsky who brought us the imaginative and entertaining "Uzumaki". That makes it all the more surprising and disappointing that the action flick is such a mess. It starts out with 11 people in an unknown room (shades of "Cube") and quickly turns into a parody/hommage of Kinji Fukasakus "Battle Royale" with a couple of ideas from the German TV movie "Das Millionenspiel" thrown in for good measure. The result is an embarrassing piece of film: The story has no power, no sense, no timing, no anything. It just moves along for only 70 minutes and still manages to bore. And the twists at the end are so bad, the film even manages to have an anti-climactic ending.
It's neither funny nor gory, neither suspenseful nor witty. So at least you could expect it to be stylish coming from the guy who did "Uzumaki", right? No. Its look is utterly cheap. The digital technology makes the sets look like remains from "Battlefield Earth" and the camera tricks (zooms, blood on the lens etc.) are both childish and annoying. I don't get how Higuchinsky could have done this. What did he try to do? Low-Budget-Trash? Some sort of guerilla film making? Whatever he tried, the result is a disaster. If you loved "Uzumaki" like I did, avoid this film at all cost or the name Higuchinsky will fall a lot in your esteem. It's a bore-fest that looks like it's shot by an amateur. Or in short: Crap!
Rating: 1/10
It's neither funny nor gory, neither suspenseful nor witty. So at least you could expect it to be stylish coming from the guy who did "Uzumaki", right? No. Its look is utterly cheap. The digital technology makes the sets look like remains from "Battlefield Earth" and the camera tricks (zooms, blood on the lens etc.) are both childish and annoying. I don't get how Higuchinsky could have done this. What did he try to do? Low-Budget-Trash? Some sort of guerilla film making? Whatever he tried, the result is a disaster. If you loved "Uzumaki" like I did, avoid this film at all cost or the name Higuchinsky will fall a lot in your esteem. It's a bore-fest that looks like it's shot by an amateur. Or in short: Crap!
Rating: 1/10