Vital-- worth watching--Feb 11th, repost

I've been on a Japanese cinema kick lately so when Vital arrived at my local Blockbuster I snapped it up pronto. The last Tsukamoto film I saw was Tetsuo. Althought I thought it was a good movie, I can't really say I "enjoyed" it. It was tough to watch. Vital is also a bit hard to watch, but well worth it. In brief Hiroshi loses his memory in an accident. Despite this he enrolls in medical school and starts his dissection class. As he works on the cadaver on the table, he starts having memories of his past life, including his girlfriend who died in the accident. As a strange twist of fate would have it, he soon realizes he is actually dissecting the body of his deceased girlfriend. A bit gross? Yes, but it's more. Vital takes an interesting look at who we really are and where the spark of our existence lies. Is it in the head, the heart or the body at all? Where do we go when we die? Tadanobu Asano is excellent as always. Nami Tsukamoto is beautiful and compelling to watch. Shinya Tsukamoto seemed to work hard to keep the gore at a minimum as to not distract from the message of the movie which is who are we really?