Immortal Story (1986)

[GlacierTuba]

First title from the recent 5729 Blu Ray titles for 8p deal on Amazon France that I received this week, and we're off to a good start as Immortal Story is a bit of a doozy.

It starts off as an extremely wholesome, teetering on cringe romantic tale, played out how only Asian cinema can. Think long, hot Summer afternoons, holding hands, going cycling together, watching sailboats go by and losing your hat in a random Summer Breeze, all while laughing cheerfully at each other over nothing. Think Kimagure Orange Road meets a Chambourcy yogurt commercial. I thought I was going to be sick.

...and then...and then Immortal Story suddenly turns in to this sea of pure, total and utter depression and just...just an abyss, this void of pure bloody bile. It's like a punch in the gut to teach you, the viewer for being a soppy, weeping, gormless ape. A big 'up yours' and no F's given.

The film doesn't actively state this as such, stay with me on this I'm trying not to spoil it. Rather you have this sudden epiphany mid-way through and the rest neatly falls in to place. It sounds cryptic, sorry, but just give the film a try and hopefully you'll come to the same realisation too.

This is another one of those films that heavily promotes a 'theme song' and it's used to death in Immortal Story. It almost verges on grating, but here I am writing this and the bloody song is firmly burrowed in to my psyche forever.

I wouldn't say Immortal Story is an outstanding film, notwithstanding the superb corkscrew of twists at the climax, but it is a bloody interesting film and one absolutely worthy of your time - and probably the odd rewatch too.

For a film that is so overloaded with saccharin it's teetering on glucotoxicity, it's so utterly depressing but in an oddly engaging way. The only thing worse would be opening the disc case and finding a gas bill inside it rather than an interesting booklet.

Highly recommended.


The Disc:

About the actual disc. You get a nice transparent slip case, the disc, the film, an image gallery on auto play and a trailer. That's it. So once you've finished watching Immortal Story and your previously good mood has been shoved well and truly back down your throat, you can go and explore a disc with F**K ALL ON IT. Because that is all you deserve and you will be happy about it!