Ore Ore (2013)

 Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: surreal, suspense
Cast: Kamenashi Kazuya, Uchida Yuki, Ryo Kaze, Kimura Midoriko, Takahashi Keiko, Fuse Eri, Nakatani Ryu, Kobayashi Kinako, Iwamatsu Ryo, Satsukawa Aimi, Okano Aya, Machida Marie,
Synopsis: Nagano Hitoshi works at electronic store, his life has became very routinized and he feels as if he is fading away from life. One day he steals a cell phone by chance and performs "ore ore sagi" (scamming money out by pretending to be someone else on the phone). He discovers that the pretended person's life is taking over his real identity and suddenly he meets other people who are also him. At first having many different "me's" feels as relaxing company, but soon they understand that there can be only one "me" in this world. 
Rating: 5/5
I wanted to see this movie ever since they started filming it. It was also screened all over the world - in cinemas and festivals in USA, Canada, Argentina, Italy, Russia, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan and etc, but you know what? It was not showed in my country nor in the countries next to my country and countries next to countries that are next to my country (If we leave Russia out, because you do not want to know how many things I should have had done if I had tried to go to Russia..). So in the end, all I could do was wait until the DVD comes out and the waiting was worth every second.
I read a really good interview with the director Satoshi Miki on Twitchfilm.com. So I will use some of it as reference for review.

Kamenashi Kazuya is amazing in this role - playing three (and more) different characters in the same scene without making you think that it is played by the same actor. Of course I must praise the technical-team who made it possible that there were all different Kamenashi's in the same room at the same time. The most difficult person to play was Hitoshi, because his personality comes out only with other people, because other "me-s" have really sharp personality traits which make them different. The movie is shown from Hitoshi's point of view. Kamenashi had asked Satoshi Miki about acting as Hitoshi and the director suggested that he should play the "main"-version of himself without acting much - of course he had to took the plainest part of himself to create Hitoshi. I felt that when the movie went on then at one point Hitoshi was left out from "Me-club activities" - mostly after there came changes in his real life - like Sayaka.

Daiki is the first other "me" that Hitoshi meets. He is mysterious with grown-up personality - most of

the time serious. He brings together Hitoshi and Nao. There are only little things that you will get to know about him like the fact that he is really good fighter, but I suggest you to pay attention on him. Nao is another "me" of Hitoshi-trio. He is a college guy who likes to play around. He also fills in Hitoshi's position at work - of course he likes to receive some merits from time to time too. Nao has the habit of acting before thinking and that causes a lot of trouble. At first he is fascinated by the thought of bringing all "me-s" together, but he never speaks about his next step to other "me-s". In total, Kamenashi Kazuya played 33 different characters.

Satoshi Miki explained the great character-variety with the fact that Kamenashi Kazuya must fill different roles in his everyday life too and it is similar to our everyday life when we are creating our "new-self" online. I admit, even I have a gap between "Cypsis" and my "original-self" - "who is the real one?" is a good question, because I do not know the answer (But I have noticed that I am slowly trying to connect them into one). We all have the different sides in us and we cannot say if one is more real than other, but same as in the movie, at one point we must deal with self-discovery about who we are and who we are not. Besides, I think that we must do it several times in life.

Satoshi Miki told that the idea of the movie came from the fact that people are getting more "same",

"similar" to each other, so that the only difference is their outfits, but their living style has become the same. If I look around in my city where I am currently living, then even the outfits are becoming the same - women with same clothes, hair and most of their appearance is fake, people moving to suburb houses which look similar - that is not only happening in Japan. I think that losing ones identity is happening all over the world, because there is just too many people (do not take it the wrong way - I do not want those "deletions" in real world). This brings us back to previous paragraph - what has happened to those people identity-difference, when they are not only same with themselves, but same with others? The most important and used sentence in the movie is "Ore ore", but it has many different interpretations throughout the movie.

There are also other important characters besides Hitoshi-s and the most important one is Sayaka. She is married woman who takes interest in Hitoshi. Her husband is yakuza, who tries to eliminate Hitoshi several times, or at least give him a warning that things will not go well for him if he continues. In some way, Sayaka may be called Hitoshi's savor, because she makes him understand himself and his identity.
The question "if it all really happened or was it just in Hitoshi's head" stays into the air, because it is certain that many things of it were caused by Hitoshi's conscience like the guilty looks. If it was an illusion, what in reality happened? If it was reality, then what happened to the other people after the end?
There was one thing in the interview that Satoshi Miki said: "Look at who is touching who and you might see the movie differently" - I think I will re-watch it now. I wish that the original novel by Hoshino Tomoyuki was available in English, but I hope it will be next year.
This is a masterpiece and I am certain that Satoshi Miki and Kamenashi Kazuya gained a lot of more popularity all over the world. As you see, it brought up many unanswered questions and I wonder if I will ever know those answers. But you have to see this movie! There simply is no other way.