I saw this film at the Imagine film festival Amsterdam 2013. The festival website summarized the plot much better than I can: (start quote) "Mister Chiba awakens in a container, tied up with a plastic bag over his head. When he manages to free himself, he finds a mobile phone, a light stick and a strange black stone. A number is tattooed on the inside of his wrist. From the way the container shakes can be deduced that Chiba is transported first in a truck and then on a ship. And he's not the only one. People are trapped in the containers next to him as well, about a hundred in total. What is the purpose of this forced journey?" (end quote)
An important aspect of the story is that everyone (victims as well as viewers) is wondering all the time about the purpose of what is happening to them. It is (indeed, as one of the victims pointed out) not a cheap operation, to transport this many containers by truck and later on overseas to whatever destination. In other words, contrary to what our main character initially assumes, this is not something that a money loan company (who is after him) can or will do to pressure clients when they don't pay in time. So there must be a higher purpose plan of some kind. Some victims speculate about a lab experiment with real humans instead of mice, maybe a psychological test of some kind??
The synopsis on the festival website promised an unexpected twist in the end, which would give us food for thought for a long time afterwards. I regret to say that I found the finale a bit disappointing. In spite of the fact it explained (nearly) everything, it still was a bit of a bummer. The role of the mysterious stone is underwhelming too, and could have been exploited better for a much more thought provoking end. Finally, the interaction between Chiba and his daughter, maybe partly fictitious but probably 100% for real, seemed part of the higher purpose plan. But it was bound by unexplained rules, unnecessarily leaving much of the final scenes unclear. I would have scored a 5 (excellent) for the audience award when leaving the theater, but decreased it to 4 (good) due to the undeserved finale, disappointing while the plot had so much more potential. Festival visitors were less impressed, and this one ended 38th (out of 45) with average score 6.01 for the audience award. Nevertheless, this film is still worth seeing, and maybe I derived too high expectations given the description on the festival website.
