Mind Game

After narrowly catching a subway and getting her ankle crushed in the doors, Nishi reunites with his high school love, Myon. He still has strong feelings for her, but his heart sinks when he finds out she’s engaged to someone else. Nishi agrees to meet Myon’s fiancé at her family’s yakitori restaurant, but the evening turns violent when yakuza members storm the place. When Nishi tries to stop them from assaulting Myon, they kill him. Instead of fading away, Nishi wakes up in the afterlife and encounters a shape-shifting god who taunts him for dying so pathetically. The god offers him a portal to oblivion, but Nishi refuses, choosing instead to bolt past the god and return to life. Reborn with a fresh perspective and foreknowledge of the yakuza’s attack, he turns the tables-killing one of the gangsters with his own gun before escaping with Myon and her sister in a stolen car. Directed by Masaaki Yuasa, "Mind Game" uses its ever-changing visuals to tell a story about seizing life without hesitation, standing apart from anything else in its boldness and style.