Quiet waters, conventional wisdom goes, run deep, and this slight Japanese tale by Shohei Imamura is about as quiet as they come. Compmany man Yosuke (Koji Yakusho) finds love, work, and renewed life after following a drifter's dying words to a town where he hopes to find a hidden treasure.
But instead of worldly wealth, the remote fishing town is home to all sorts of oddball characters: an undernourished African marathon runner who is perpetually chased by his baseball-bat-wielding coach, friendly yet violence-prone fishermen, a senile grandmother who pens fortune cookie prophecies, and a woman with a mysterious water level problem that leads her to occasional outrageous outbursts of "wickedness."
As charming as some of Imamura's quirkier elements are, the relentless magical whimsy grows wearying over the film's two-hour running time, and its attempts at life-affirming lightness feel merely shallow.
"Warm Water Under a Red Bridge" is available on DVD from Home Vision Entertainment. The DVD includes a director's biography and filmography and the original theatrical trailer.
