Frightfest 2021: ‘Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes’ Review
Stars: Aki Asakura, Kazunari Tosa, Riko Fujitani, Gota Ishida, Masashi Suwa, Yoshifumi Sakai | Written by Makoto Ueda | Directed by Junat Yamaguchi
A couple of years ago at Frightfest, One Cut of the Dead blew everyone away with it’s originality, cleverness and charm, creating a whole new kind of zombie movie. Even though Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes does not feature the same filmmakers, it is still rightly being hailed as a worthy successor to the genre film.
It’s easy to see why after only a few minutes of the movie as we jump straight into the time travel story. It may sound a little more complicated than it actually is as a café owner discovers his PC monitor shows what will happen two minutes into the future, while a screen downstairs in the café shows the past of two minutes ago. His friends decide to place the two screens opposite each other creating a time loop. Then things get really interesting!
It’s a really intelligent movie, especially because it does a fantastic job of explaining what could be a very complicated story. You don’t have to understand time travel – and who actually does, to understand this film. Your head might be doing cartwheels throughout the run time but in a good way. You’ll be trying to guess where it is all heading and understanding what is happening each and every minute. It also produces a few moral dilemmas, as with most time travel tales.
There’s a fantastic flow and pace to the movie. At just 70 minutes it could quite easily of done two things. Felt too short and left a lot of unanswered questions or felt like a short story that had been dragged out to make a full feature length. But, like the similarly short recent horror hit Host, it does neither and the run time is perfect. Amazingly shot in one take, the often close-up camera shots make you feel like you’re right in with the action. Almost like you’re any extra character viewing everything with the friends on screen. It’s incredibly well shot with every camera movement clearly well considered and all shot in pretty much, one small location. Just the café downstairs, the stairs themselves and one room above the café.
Much like One Cut of the Dead, the cast are key. And like the aforementioned movie they all seem like normal people in a strange situation and most importantly, all are very likeable. The story doesn’t get in the way of many genuinely funny moments. That charm it displays will have you grinning for the whole 70 minutes.
The cleverness of the script will mean that this is a movie that you will not only want to watch again and again but will only improve with each viewing. You will see things you didn’t see previously and understand things a little bit more each time.
Maybe not your obvious Frightfest hit – this is definitely not a horror movie – but it’s a shot in the arm for time travel movies and it has that Japanese charm that is unrivalled. So just sit back and let Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes put a big smile on your face.
*** 3/5
Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes screened as part of this years Arrow Video Frightfest London event.
