" dangan runner " -- the word " dangan " means " bullet " -- is one big chase scene played for comic revelation . like a lot of action movies , there's a climax where everyone's shooting at everyone else -- but in this case , it's played as a tongue-in-cheek piece of black comedy instead of a serious contest of strength . " dangan runner " takes three people whose lives have bottomed out and intertwines them in bizarre ways . tomoroh taguchi ( the quintessential japanese cult actor ) , as yasuda , is a schlub who can't even hold down a short-order cook job . he tries to rob a bank , but even that collapses when he realizes he's left his face mask at hime -- and the only mask he can find at the corner convenience store ( in a hilarious piece of montage ) is a children's-sized job . in despair , he tries robbing the place , and winds up shooting the store clerk , aizawa ( daimond yukai ) . aizawa has his own problems . he's got a band ( and judging from the brief clip we see , where yukai himself performs , they're pretty good ) , but he's got a yakuza boss squeezing him for cash , a girlfriend who he doesn't care for , and a drug addiction . when yasuda shoots him ( it isn't much of a wound , actually ) , aizawa takes off after him , and they collide with takeda . takeda is a yakuza protector , walking around in a funk because despite his oaths of fealty , he chickened out when someone tried to attack his boss ( and let the man get stabbed to death ) . aizawa and yasuda collide with him , and an innocent bystander gets shot as well -- and now takeda is after * them * . and they run , run , run -- for something like 80% of the running time ( pardon the pun ) of " dangan runner " , in a crazy marathon of self-determination . each of them has a reason to keep going , and pretty soon it becomes all that's holding them together . ( there are moments where the " marathon " aspect is explicitly parodied , like when each of them grab free drinks being offered at a promotional stand . but the joke doesn't end there . ) astute viewers will probably no doubt find similarities between this and " lola rennt [run lola run] " , but " dangan runner " is its own animal , funny and fast-moving . there is a kind of a nod to the parallel-reality jaunting of " lola " -- in one screamingly funny scene , the three runners jog past a pretty young woman , and each of them entertains varied pornographic fantasies about her . they're not alone in their dreaming , either : the cops and the yakuza have their own hilariously-realized fantasies about how they'd like things to unfold as well . " dangan runner " is not the greatest movie ever made , but at 82 minutes it's tight and fresh . i understand that director hiroyuki tanaka is something of a great white hope for japanese film right now , and seeing this movie it's not hard to see why . 
