The New York Asian Film Festival took place between June 28 and July 14, 2019. For more information, click here.
We might as well start with this: there’s a pretty solid argument to be made that the Kan Eguchis adaptation of Katsuhisa Minima’s manga The Fable and Sabu’s Chaplin-esque Mr. Long (which I previously reviewed here) are essentially the same movie. Or, at least, they start with the same basic story, that of a hitman forced to curb his violent ways and go into hiding among an eccentric community that they slowly begin to adapt as their own.
But if there’s any greater testament to the Gene Siskel quote I have consistently and thoroughly been stealing for years about it being less important what a movie is about than how it is about it, I must have missed it.
Execution is everything.
(The urge to point out how clever that turn of phrase was in this context is overwhelming, but I know that all you guys totally got it already, so just ignore this part.)
The Fable, as it turns out, is not so much referring to the tone of the movie as the main character played by Jun’Ichi Okada, a mythical assassin who goes by that nickname and is considered more urban legend than anything. But he is very real and very, very deadly, as we find out mere moments after the studio logos have all come and gone.
Right from the start we are thrust into a heightened world, a broader version of reality where the physics are loose (and only get looser as the film goes on) and the blood flows like CGI. Our introduction to the Fable, a highly successful hit on a hard partying Yakuza gang, is less of an action sequence and more of a gleefully over-the-top massacre, as no one even comes close to being able to lay so much as a finger on him.
His reward for such efficient, highly enjoyable murder is a forced vacation from his bosses; assuming the identity of Akira Sato, he is forced to move to Tahei City and live a normal life for one year, as this is a skill he never developed. And so, accompanied by his loyal, borderline alcoholic assistant posing as his sister Yoko (Fumina Kimura, hilarious), he vows to be “normal” and not kill anyone for a year… on penalty of death.
Answering to Ebihara (Ken Yasuda), the right hand man of the Big Boss of Osaka, who is less than pleased to have a notorious killer potentially bringing trouble to their doorstep, Fable/Akira finds himself romantically involved with Misako (Mizuki Yamamoto), a sweet young office worker with a secret. Less romantically and more reluctantly, he also gets involved with Ebihara’s recently released blood brother Kojima (Yuya Yagira), who seems intent on stirring up trouble. On top of that is the pair of up-and-coming killers who are on his trail and desperate for a showdown because, as one of them puts it, “I’m jealous on a professional level.”
With all that in mind, it will probably not be a surprise that things don’t go quite as smoothly as everybody might hope; it might, however, be a surprise how far “Akira” is willing to go to live up to his vow of nonviolent normalcy…
At the start I compared The Fable to Mr. Long, and it’s instructional to see how both stories evolve from a generally similar starting premise.
Mr. Long is a deeply melancholy film, quiet and pensive. It takes its time in exploring the protagonist’s situation and the world around him, so that when the dreaded and inevitable violence finally comes, it slashes against the developed sense of calm and community, creating an aura of inescapable tragedy around the conclusion.
The Fable, on the other hand, friskily careens in all directions, recklessly piling up plot shards and building itself to an inexorable point where an explosion of cathartic cartoon violence is the only possible solution.
One doesn’t want to make too much of these comparisons; they’re both films with their own specific goals, seeking to create very different reactions from their audiences. But in the context of a programmed festival it becomes slightly more interesting to note.
The most important thing here to note is that The Fable is a ton of fun.
And it’s fun because it doesn’t take itself or its characters seriously on any level. Almost to a man they’re a bunch of glorious cartoons, so it’s a joy to watch them bounce off one another and suffer the consequences.
The titular Fable shares the same deadpan, dead eyed countenance as Mr. Long, but punctures it with such offbeat touches as his outbursts of raucous laughter at the televised antics of catchphrase spouting comedian Jackal Tomioka (played by Daisuke Miyagawa in a series of cameos that play like a dense inside joke). The running gag of his extreme sensitivity to hot foods is good for a few laughs, as are the occasional and inexplicable displays of random idle nudity and his surprising skill at coming up with cartoon logos for businesses (making this perhaps the first and only movie where a hitman winds up in the field of graphic design). Okada is a wonder in the role, playing all ends of the characters with the exact right amount of comedic discipline.
And Okada’s steadfastness and ability to hold the center gives Eguchi the freedom to really go to town, style-wise. From the wildly kinetic opening shootout that garnishes its kills with animated illustrations of bullet trajectories that resemble nothing less than the targeting systems of modern shooter games to multiple hilarious inversions of Guy Ritchie’s ‘Sherlock Vision’, The Fable proves a highly entertaining romp that never stops trying to invent fun methods of telling a familiar story.
