Chie Hayakawa (director)
(studio)
15 (certificate)
113 (length)
12 May 2023 (released)
11 May 2023
With the news that Japan has had its lowest birth rate in 2022 at just below 800,000, and a rapidly aging society – the latter reflected in many other countries, Plan 75 may have some resonance well beyond the borders of that country.
Very simply the young have had enough of policy being biased towards a growing ageing population, by a state that is more interested in power than social cohesion. Taking power into their own hands a series of terrorist hits force the state to take notice.
The solution is Plan 75 that encourages the over 75s to euthanise themselves for the sake of society. The film looks at three affected people: an elderly woman Michi (Chieko Baisho) let go from her job as a waitress; she doesn’t fit the ambience of the place though she wants to work.
Then from within the administration of the Plan there’s Hiromu (Hayato Isomura) who has few qualms about his job until his uncle Yukio (Taka Takao) decides to apply. Then Filipino immigrant Maria (Stefanie Arianne) who’s job is to strip the bodies and prepare them for cremation.
The stories interlink and cross delicately as the moral and ethical issues play out. Not forgetting the practical elements too that have been controversially voiced - and dismissed – in Japan.
What director Chie Hayakawa, co-written with Jason Gray, has also embedded is the crass commercialism and propaganda that the state has put in place to make the policy palpable. Dousing the population with guilt and to do the right thing.
It is bleak, bleaker still as these are live issues examined here. With an aging population that needs care, and with a younger generation that isn’t there or doesn’t want to do this type of work, the matter of immigration comes into play that is almost an anathema to some states.
As an entertainment there isn’t that much truth be told. It is very slow and filmed in grey misty hues that only dampen things more. But it is an interesting take on a common sci-fi dystopia most famously with Soylent Green.
Plan 75 opens in UK cinemas and Curzon Home Cinema from 12 May 2023
