TRANSCENDING DIMENSIONS
****
Directed by Toshiaki Toyoda.
Starring Yôsuke Kubozuka, Chihara Jr, Ryûhei Matsuda.
Science-Fiction, Japan, 93 minutes.
Reviewed as part of FrightFest 2025 - UK PREMIERE
By now we’re all well aware of such concepts as the multiverse and parallel universes and what not. What was once the domain of sci-fi fans and forward thinking physicists is now mainstream fodder for a number of blockbusters and TV shows. Now here comes writer and director Toshiaki Toyoda to scramble our brains with the wilfully obscure and ascetic TRANSCENDING DIMENSIONS, a film which mixes in mind bending concepts with heavy measures of philosophy, resurrection, hitmen, foul mouthed monks with magic powers and how to transcend dimensions with the help of a big conch shell. I think.
It may sound from the above like a hard going slog but is anything but that. While the film does take its time, dropping in the credit sequence after half an hour for instance, it thoroughly entertains with its loopy story of a hitman hired by a woman to look for her boyfriend and assassinate a supposedly sorcerous monk who likes to collect his followers severed pinkies and may be behind the disappearance.
Fans of Japanese cult cinema will no doubt lap this up. Its deadpan comic stylings go hand in hand with its often dizzying visual style which recalls the likes of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the more kaleidoscopic visuals of Seijun Suzuki. The stomping and jazzy soundtrack is a banger too.
It may sometimes test the patience with perhaps too many sequences of people walking slowly in slow motion despite the painterly compositions all around the characters and there is a definite head scratching quality to the film's story. What may be a niggle for some viewers however will definitely attract a more appreciative audience who tune into the films wavelength with its fractal storytelling, visual style and absurd humour.
Iain MacLeod
