It’s a Summer Film! Review

It’s a Summer Film! is a 2020 feature film directed by Soushi Matsumoto.

A melding of comedy, romance, science fiction, and samurai storytelling, It’s a Summer Film! is an entertaining thrill of a film.

Hearing all of that here on paper it would seem as if mixing up all of these elements would prove to be a disaster. That might be true in the hands of a less capable director, but fortunately, everything works not just well but flawlessly together.

A coming-of-age story told over the last school summer of three close high school friends who embark on a journey to make their own samurai film.

Naturally, anytime a film is about film, there is going to be a certain level of instant grabbing of the attention for someone who writes reviews on the subject. It might be cheating giving extra points for this but in fairness the level in which it is shown and talked about is friendly enough for those outside of the know to enjoy it as well.

While from a story cohesion standpoint, all the elements discussed are welded well, the one element that really doesn’t get a lot of love has to be everything to do from a science fiction perspective. The exact details won’t be mentioned here for spoiler reasons, but besides a passing scene, it feels mainly glossed over to add more genre to the mix.

This is another live action film from the festival that definitely takes some cues from the world of anime, but only in a few brief spurts of overly dramatic acting, although at the heart it is all for good fun.

Where things proved a touch, divisive here proved to be the ending moments of the film which, while subversive, broke a bit of the suspension of disbelief. You will either really enjoy it or perhaps be taken a little out of it. Either way, it must be stated that even despite this, there were still shivers up the spine (probably not the best description) in the true final few lines just before the credits rolled.

If you enjoy your comedy films stuffed to the gills with deep and varied storytelling, then It’s a Summer Film! comes as one that you should definitely go see. The pace never falters and everything is delivered with a spirit that really encapsulates the sometimes over the top youthful energy that we all had in our high school days. A perfect watch on these wonderful summer days.

This film was screened as part of Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film presented by Japan Society. You can follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Cheers!

Daniel Hess

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