Vital (film)

Vital
Vital DVD cover
Directed by	Shinya Tsukamoto
Produced by	Shinya Tsukamoto
Written by	Shinya Tsukamoto
Starring	Tadanobu Asano Nami Tsukamoto
Music by	Chu Ishikawa
Distributed by	Gold View Company Ltd.
Release date(s)	2004 (Japan)
Running time	86 min.
Language	Japanese
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Vital is a Japanese film made in 2004. It was directed by Shinya Tsukamoto and stars Tadanobu Asano as Hiroshi Takagi, a man whose girlfriend dies and who loses his memory in a car accident.

Plot

Hiroshi (Tadanobu Asano) wakes up in a hospital room and realizes that he was in a serious car accident that caused the death of his girlfriend, Ryoko (Nami Tsukamoto), as well as the loss of his memory. While trying to regain his memory, one of the first clues that Hiroshi finds are his old medical textbooks that he studied prior to his accident. This gives him a renewed purpose in life and he delves forward into his medical school studies. One of his medical school classmates, Ikumi (Kiki), soon becomes infatuated with Hiroshi, although he does not return her interests initially. During a 4 month period, in which his class dissects human cadavers, Hiroshi realizes that the body that he is dissecting is the body of his former girlfriend, Ryoko, which causes more of Hiroshi’s memory to return. During this time, Hiroshi engages in a relationship with his classmate Ikumi, that helps him recall further memories of his ex girlfriend. Ikumi, meanwhile, feels jealous rage because of Hiroshi’s devotion in dissecting the cadaver of Ryoko, while Hiroshi is consumed in the quest to understand who that person was that died in his car and ultimately find out who he really is.

External links

• Vital at the Internet Movie Database