Director Satoshi Miki¡¯s new comedy ¡°Ore Ore (It¡¯s Me, it¡¯s Me)¡± is more on the cultish than the commercial end of the scale, with its head-scratcher of a story about a first-time scammer who starts encountering various versions of himself in a bizarre new world: karmic payback for impersonating a stranger via a stolen cellphone to the man¡¯s own mother.
Miki admitted as much to me when we met at the Udine Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, where ¡°It¡¯s Me, it¡¯s Me¡± had its world premiere on April 19. Nervously puffing a cigarette at the welcoming dinner, held at a restaurant next to Udine¡¯s historic hilltop castle, he thanked me for recommending his ¡°hard to understand¡± film to the festival as a program advisor. ¡°(Starring actor Kazuya) Kamenashi is the reason it¡¯s getting all this attention,¡± he added, referring to the media uproar at home when the film¡¯s selection for an opening-night slot was announced.
Not that Miki was a nonentity, even in this small Northern Italian city. With his long hair, scraggly beard, dark glasses and ball cap, he was easy to pick out in a crowd. More importantly, his films had been the subject of a special section we screened, with Miki present, at the festival¡¯s 2008 edition and his face was still familiar to many local fans.
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