Invisible Waves

Quiet and unassuming, Kyoji had been enjoying a perfectly normal sort of ex-pat’s existence ever since he’d left Japan for the moldering charms and old-world intimacy of the once-notorious Chinese-Portuguese colony called Macau. Earning a living as a chef's assistant, his daily routine began and ended with a scenic commute by ferry and funicular to and from a restaurant high atop the hills that overlook Hong Kong. It was a good job, a great place to live, a completely comfortable life. If only Kyoji hadn’t one day decided to whip up something decidedly off the menu -- a love affair with Seiko, his boss's restless wife. And now that the boss had caught wind of things, it looked like Kyoji’s goose was cooked.

The dinner -- so far as the boss is concerned -- turns out to be a major success. But Kyoji starts feeling a bit queasy soon afterward, haunted by an unmistakably nauseating aftertaste. It’s gotten so bad that lately he’s been feeling like puking at least a couple of times a day. So when the boss decides to reward his young employee’s loyalty with an all expenses paid pleasure cruise to the tropical island resort of Phuket, Kyoji is glad to go along. Maybe a low-key, high seas holiday in southern Thailand is just what he needs to  settle his aching stomach and soothe his uneasy mind.

But neither the cruise nor the cruise ship turns out to be quite as Kyoji had hoped. For one thing, his cabin is more the size of a sailor’s footlocker than a stateroom, with a door that keeps locking the Kyoji helplessly inside it, where he’s tormented by infernal noises from the engine room and gusts of noxious steam. And then there’s Noi, the mysterious woman Kyoji meets while roaming the dilapidated ocean liner’s deserted topside decks. Having another woman in his life is the last thing Kyoji needed, but rather than leaving his past behind him and sailing off to calmer seas, now Kyoji’s starting hearing the call of yet another siren, tempting him back toward the jagged rocks along the shore. And just as Kyoji’s quiet vacation is about to get swamped by the sort of sleeper-surge that no one ever sees coming, he finds himself thinking more andmore about that old piece of kitchen wisdom -- the one about guilt being toughest dish to swallow.

Ulp! --  Here comes that seasick feeling again.

What could be causing Kyoji’s constant queasiness? Could it have come from something he ate?

A philosophical crime caper flavored with a soupcon of cut-glass satire, INVISIBLE WAVES is part existential ghost story, part slapstick Ship of Fools. And as it navigates the surges and lulls of loving and lying, and rides out the rocky riptides of regret that sometimes threaten to capsize us all, it will take you on an perplexing voyage to the bottom of the human soul. Filled with a sun-baked assortment of shimmying transvestites, karaoke-crooning contract killers, lethally seductive sea creatures, and titanic twists of fate, INVISIBLE WAVES will leave you pleasure-soaked to your very core. Pan-Asian filmmaking at its most fluid and creative, it’s all about surviving the darkest of life’s emotional waters -- and then plunging back in for more.

Director
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang

Cast
Tadanobu Asano ( 淺野忠信 )
Hye-jeong Kang ( 姜蕙姃 )
Eric Tsang ( 曾志偉  )
Toon Hiranyasup
Kuga Tomono
Mitsuishi Ken
Maria Corderro ( 瑪莉亞 )
Matthew Goode

Distributor: Golden Scene Company Limited

Release date: 25th May, 2006

Category: IIB

Duration: 119 mins

Cinemas: Broadway Cinematheque / Cine Art

Website: http://www.invisiblewaves.com/