Last Life in the Universe

Infobox Film | name = Last Life in the Universe


caption = Poster for the US release of "Last Life in the Universe".
director = Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
producer = Wouter Barendrecht,
Nonzee Nimibutr
writer = Pen-Ek Ratanaruang,
Prabda Yoon
starring = Tadanobu Asano,
Sinitta Boonyasak,
Laila Boonyasak
music = Hualampong Riddim & Small Room
cinematography = Christopher Doyle
editing =
distributor = Five Star Production,
Cinemasia,
Fortissimo Films
released = 8 August 2003
language = Thai, Japanese, English
runtime = 112 min
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id = 1:294123
imdb_id = 0345549

"Last Life in the Universe" (Thai title: เรื่องรัก น้อยนิด มหาศาล, "Ruang rak noi nid mahasan") is a 2003 Thai film directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. The film is notable for being trilingual; the two main characters flit from Thai to Japanese to English as their vocabulary requires. The film stars Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano and Sinitta Boonyasak.

Plot

Kenji is a mysterious librarian with the Japan Foundation in Bangkok who might be a Yakuza. Living in an obsessively neat apartment full of precise stacks of books, he is convinced that death will be a pleasant nap between lives, but finds his half-hearted attempts to kill himself continually interrupted by the people around him. Kenji's most notable obstacle is his self-absorbed brother, Yukio, a "yakuza", or Japanese gangster. Yukio is on vacation from Japan to escape the wrath of his employer, whose daughter he slept with. Yukio's friend Takashi suggests that if it were his daughter, he would have the despoiler killed, but Kenji's brother laughs this warning off. Yukio frequents a club where he can enjoy the attention of a bunny-eared hostess, a local girl named Nid. Nid's sister, Noi, is furious at her sibling for having slept with her boyfriend, Jon.

One day in the library, Kenji spies on Nid, clad in a school girl's uniform. Soon after, he discovers that his brother has hidden a pistol inside a teddy bear. He is about to shoot himself when Yukio is slain by Takashi, who was apparently hired by Yukio's employer. Takashi sees Kenji, who appears hopeful at his impending death, but suddenly Kenji shoots and kills the assassin. Not long after that, Kenji is about to jump off a bridge when Noi and Nid, driving past, have an argument. Noi throws Nid out of the car, then reconsiders. Nid, distracted by Kenji sitting on the railing of the bridge, is struck by another car and dies.

Kenji and Noi, both having lost a sibling, form a tentative friendship. The introspective Kenji asks the extroverted Noi if he can stay with her, unwilling to spend time with the two corpses in his apartment. Noi agrees, and invites the fussy Japanese man into her disastrously unkempt beachside home. As Kenji begins cleaning, Noi prepares to leave for Japan to further her career. Surreal elements creep into the film; Noi sees the house magically cleaning itself, while Kenji watches Noi transform into her temptress sister. The couple, in some ways polar opposites and in some ways mirror images, form a semi-romantic relationship. Meanwhile, the abusive and promiscuous ex-boyfriend Jon begins calling, angry that Noi thinks she can leave him. Three "yakuza" are also dispatched to find out what has happened to Takashi.

In the final segments, Kenji drives Noi to the airport, then decides he will join her. He returns to his apartment to gather his things and purposely knocks over a stack of books. While he is in the bathroom, first Jon, then the "yakuza" arrive. Jon is slain, and Kenji apparently escapes out the window. The movie then cuts back and forth between two scenes: one, in which Kenji has been arrested for some unspecified crime, and another in which he is re-united with Noi in Japan. The relationship between or canonicity of these two scenes is not made clear by the movie - particularly whether the reuniting scene is imagined or not.

Throughout the movie are images of the furtive gecko who lives in Noi's house, as well as "The Last Lizard", Kenji's children's book about a reptile who wakes up to discover he is the final member of his species. The fictional lizard realizes that even being with his enemies, the other lizards who picked on him, was preferable to being alone.

Interpretations

Some people, perplexed by the ending, have suggested that Kenji is indeed reunited with Noi, after a brief detainment by the authorities. Others claim that he is merely dreaming about her, which is a much healthier fantasy than killing himself. Whether he was arrested for killing two people or five is also up for debate. Still others suggest that the entire movie is structured like the famous story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", a could-have-been life flashing before Kenji's eyes in the instant before he successfully hanged himself or was slain by Takashi.

Another complication is the possibility that Kenji, despite his bookish demeanor, is actually a former "yakuza" himself. The elaborate tattoo on his back seems to support this view, though some claim that Kenji and Noi are merely imagining themselves as becoming more like their deceased siblings, as evidenced by the sudden revealing of Kenji's elaborate back tattoo (some have also speculated that Kenji's brother is in fact his Yakuza brother or "Aniki" and not his blood relative) and the scenes in which Noi is actually seen as the image of her sister, switching actresses and costumes in between shots of the same scene. However, it would be hard to argue that Kenji's skillful use of a firearm in the dark, in the beginning of the film, as well as his strength when he attacks Jon after Jon assaults Noi, was imagined.

Awards

"Last Life in the Universe" was awarded in Thailand two times by the Thailand National Film Association Awards and the "FIPRESCI Prize" (Bangkok International Film Festival). For his role as Kenji, Asano Tadanobu received the Upstream Prize for Best Actor at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. The film received the AQCC Award and Jury Prize at the Fant-Asia Film Festival. It was also chosen to be Thailand's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2003.

=Cast=
*Tadanobu Asano as Kenji
*Sinitta Boonyasak as Noi
*Laila Boonyasak as Nid
*Yutaka Matsushige as Yukio
*Riki Takeuchi as Takashi
*Thiti Rhumorn as Jon
*Yoji Tanaka, Sakichi Sato and cult film director Takashi Miike as the "yakuza"

Trivia

*In one scene, a policeman is seen saluting while the Thai "Royal Anthem" plays over loudspeakers. This occurs at 8 am and 6 pm daily throughout Thailand.
*The soundtrack music played at the end of the movie called "Gravity" became a hit alongside the thai diva Dharini Divari who performed the song.
*During the library scene where Kenji first encounters Nid, a hanging poster for the Takashi Miike film Ichi the Killer is clearly featured.

External links

*imdb title|id=0345549|title=Last Life in the Universe
*rotten-tomatoes|id=last_life_in_the_universe|title=Last Life in the Universe
*" [http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?Last+Life+in+the+Universe Last Life in the Universe] " at the Movie Review Query Engine
* [http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/l/last-life-in-the-universe-script.html Script of "Last Life in the Universe"]