Doppelganger

Unable to finish his novel, Takashi Nagai cracks under pressure and develops a duplicate soul. The double moves into the Nishimori apartment that Takashi shares with his sister, Yuka (Hiromi Nagasaku), and shames him by writing feverishly; finally, the real Takashi commits suicide. Meanwhile, scientist Michio Hayasaki (Koji Yukusho) learns that his corporate sponsor may pull the plug on his "Artificial Human Body Chair," a brain-stimulating device he can't quite perfect. Like Nagai, Hayasaki begins seeing double. His twin, however, is his polar opposite. The ruthless, hedonistic doppelganger steals the work-in-progress and transports it to a secret lab, where he encourages the absent-minded Hayasaki to tinker. As the duplicate calls the shots and even seduces Hayasaki’s lab assistant, the real Hayasaki grows weaker and less authoritative. The doppelganger even hires a low-level crook, Kimishima (Yusuke Santamaria), as a guinea pig for the automated chair. Fortunately, Hayasaki finds an ally in Yuka, who's no stranger to double trouble. Hayasaki’s former boss at Medicon Industries subsequently negotiates a determined bid for the completed product, Kimishima steals it for sale to a foreign bidder. To retrieve his brainchild, Hayasaki must adopt his double’s aggressiveness, but having reclaimed his prize, he must still work up the wherewithall to destroy his parallel-identity. If Hayasaki flinches, he’ll wind up a forgotten man replaced by his tougher duplicate.

Billed as a thriller, Kurosawa's film is actually supernatural action picture with a dash soupcon of sci-fi; the premise posits that a flawed hero has much to learn from his evil twin. Kurosawa’s whirlwind style trumps plot logic as the characters wander through the script’s hall of mirrors, but it's an entertaining ride nonetheless. leave a comment --Robert Pardi