The phenomenon of life review in the face of imminent death is well known, if resistant to scientific explanation: How do you conduct experiments on falling mountain climbers or expiring ER patients?
Something similar occurs in Shinzo Katayama’s “Lust in the Rain” when soldier-protagonist Yoshio (Ryo Narita) is shot in wartime China and sees his past flash by like a surreal highlight reel.
But this phantasmagoric romantic drama, which is based on four stories by manga artist Yoshiharu Tsuge, so thoroughly obliterates the divide between past and present, waking and dreaming (or hallucinating) that defining Yoshio’s baseline reality becomes hard — and pointless. When Yoshio tells his free-spirited lover Fukuko (Eriko Nakamura) that she “goes with the flow,” I thought it good advice for enjoying this meandering, mesmerizing movie.
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