There were 26 feedback response slips returned after the showing of this film. The breakdown from these slips were as follows: Rating: 
- ‘Excellent’: 3 votes
- ‘Very Good’: 7 votes
- ‘Good’: 8 votes
- ‘Satisfactory’: 3 votes
- ‘Poor’: 4 votes
- + 1 comment submitted without a grade indicated
Feedback comments for “Kumiko The Treasure Hunter”.
As ever, we are always interested to receive any additional comments people may have on this film.
Reading the audience reaction slips after the film, I was intrigued by several references to other directors. Besides the obvious Coen Brother connection (all the US characters; the Evangelical Tourist Guides, the Deaf/Mute taxi driver, lonely Widow, etc., would have been at home in any of their movies), there was also reference to Stanley Kubrick. For myself, the scene where Kumiko is standing on the frozen lake – a riot of colour on an otherwise pure white screen – panning back to take in the pine trees on the distant hills, recalled the final scene in Werner Herzog’s “Aguirre, Wrath of Gods”, with him on the raft in the middle of the Amazon river – alone except for the corpse of his daughter on her makeshift throne. (Kumiko’s earlier comparing herself with Spanish Conquistadors, probably being the spark).
It has been stated that this film (unlike the Coen Brothers’ assertion at the start of their film) is inspired by a true event. Whilst the Fargo buried treasure link was originally given as the reason for her travelling to Minnesota this was, in fact, just an urban myth. Takako Konishi was working as a Bar girl in the Tokyo Red Light district when she had a brief affair with an American Banker, who later moved to Singapore. When he rejected her request to join him there, she decided to travel to his home town (he was from Fargo) to end her life – as stated in the suicide note she left to her mother. The Police Officer who met her spoke no Japanese, and she no English, so the only word he caught was Fargo, and it was he who assumed she was looking for the mythical buried treasure (incidently, he did phone all three local chinese restaurants to ask if anyone could act as an interpreter!) The autopsy revealed she had a cocktail of six drugs as well as copious amounts of alcohol in her blood
Although I initially gave the film a ‘very good’ rating, on reflection I’m inclined to go for the ‘excellent’ category. It was while discussing the film over a pint that I began to see just how fascinating the odd, quirky characters were and just how clever the film was in terms of its style and form. There were echoes of ‘Nebraska’, but the characters were much more subtle, and with so little dialogue. ‘Kumiko’ is one I will want to see again in a few months time!
This film made me feel utterly miserable and if I had been sitting on the end of the row i would have left! I suppose a sign of my strong reaction to the film indicates its power and the skill of the director