They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but in the terms of a sensational indie film coming out of Japan, this is certainly the case.
After the worldwide success of One Cut of the Dead in early 2019, our Eastern friends have provided us with another special film in Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes from Junta Yamaguchi, his feature directorial debut.
Kato lives above the cafe that he runs along with his friend Aya – everything is normal until one day when finishing for the day, he discovers that his TV is linked to the set in the cafe but on a two-minute delay when he begins to have a conversation with himself. After getting his friends Komiya, Ozawa and Tanabe involved with this revelation, things start to go wrong as they soon find out that maybe knowing the future isn’t as good as it can be.
From the outset, the most impressive aspect of this film, which comes in at a short runtime of 70 minutes, is that it is crafted to appear as one single take meaning that once the story has you hooked, there is nothing to take you away from the hilarious comedy and mind-bending sci-fi goodness that writer Makoto Ueda has created.
Even more awe-inspiring is that this film was made on a micro-budget by Europe Kikaku, a production company that has only ever done theatre shows before this with the majority of the cast never appearing in a film before.
From start to finish, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is a wonderfully crafted sci-fi comedy that is surely going to go down as an important film for aspiring filmmakers and truly proves that if you have an idea and a camera, anything is possible.
The special features included on the home disc release are also a must watch including a short Making Of documentary, an interview with Director Junta Yamaguchi and even the original short film that Beyond is based on by writer Makoto Ueda, named Howling. All of these will add even more appreciation to how truly special this film is.
BEYOND THE INFINITE TWO MINUTES is released November 15th on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital


