The world premiere of Hitoshi Matsumoto's "R100" in the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness section must be frustrating for all those Japanese auteurs out there who got rejection letters from North America's most important festival.
True, the section is devoted to quirk and kink, which fits Matsumoto's fourth feature, about a man trapped in an ever-escalating S&M game, to a T. But if it did not feature the name of Matsumoto, who has reigned for decades as a top TV comic, this mess of a film would probably not get the prestige boost of the Toronto label, as well as its distribution in Japan by Hollywood major Warner.
It's hardly Matsumoto's fault, since that's just the way the system works. Strange, crazed films from Japan's "brand name" directors are in demand by overseas festivals — and that is what he happily supplies. But whereas 2007's "Dai-Nipponjin (Big Man Japan)," 2009's "Symbol" and 2011's "Saya Zamurai (Scabbard Samurai)" were full-throttle comedies, if ones utterly weird by local genre standards, "R100" plays like a confused erotic nightmare, with fun moments scattered and few.