Sushi King Goes to New York

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TIFF 09: Does It Make Any More Sense? Nope! But There's a New TV Spot For Hitoshi Matsumoto's SYMBOL!

by Todd Brown, September 4, 2009 2:24 PM


Cult Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto is clearly not afraid of confusing his audience.  The first teaser for his upcoming Symbol?  Just a pajama clad man in a plain white room slowly filling with cherubim.  Teaser two?  Pajama man again, this time intercut with a grimy old man surrounded by dogs.  And now?  A new TV spot that features that same footage rapid-cut with quick flashes of other images that just ... well ... how exactly do plain white room man, dog guy, nuns and a masked wrestler fit together?  The film is about to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and here's how they describe it:

A Midnight Madness favourite in 2007, Hitoshi Matsumoto's outrageous superhero-versus-giant-monsters comedy DAINIPPONJIN was a true big-screen freak show. His second feature, Symbol, is a mind-melting journey into the deepest realm of his imagination. To say that Symbol is difficult to describe is an understatement of epic proportions.

In the central tale, a Japanese man (Matsumoto) wakes up alone in a brightly illuminated white room with no windows or doors. When he presses a mysteriously phallic protuberance that appears on one wall, a pink toothbrush materializes from nowhere, clattering to the floor and setting in motion a genuinely bizarre chain of events. Soon the imprisoned man is engaged in absurd and hilarious attempts to escape the gleaming room, releasing random objects from the walls, creating a life-sized Mouse Trap game in which a rope, a toilet plunger and an earthenware jug full of sushi might just be the keys to his escape.

Meanwhile, in a dusty town, a green-masked Mexican wrestler known as Escargot Man prepares for an important match. His family gathers around him, worried about his seeming impassivity before battle. As the nameless prisoner appears closer to escape and Escargot Man steps into the ring, Matsumoto amplifies the baffling yet suspenseful atmosphere to a crescendo of ridiculous excess.

Find the new TV spot below!



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