Review:
Takazawa, an elderly invalid, is cared for by a volunteer nurse named Haruko. However, the program that takes care of Takazawa and many other elderly Japanese is overburdened and unable to support all the people that could use it, so the Ministry of Public Welfare proposes something new: the Z-001, a computerized "smart" hospital bed that can take care of a patient's every need without any input from a human being. Takazawa's family (who we never see) volunteers him to be the first patient in a Z-001.
Haruko is convinced that the Z-001 couldn't possibly replace the kind of care a real nurse could provide. Her worries seem founded when Takazawa somehow transmits a message to her, asking for help. With the aid of a bunch of elderly hackers, Haruko does her best to free her patient.
I'd seen this movie before, but all I really remembered about it was the last scene. It mixed humor and social commentary - what should be done about the elderly? On the one hand, the more traditional system with human caretakers couldn't do everything necessary. Haruko did her best for Takazawa, but he was really only supposed to call her for emergencies, and things like wetting the bed didn't count (even though he was physically incapable of cleaning up the mess himself and was therefore forced to lie in it). On the other hand, although the Z-001 was billed as providing patients with both dignity and better care, it was, at least initially, an object that manipulated Takazawa's body like an object. The way the Z-001's capabilities were demonstrated was uncomfortable to watch. A whole audience of journalists and interested medical professionals observed as the Z-001 stripped Takazawa naked, fed him, assisted him with defecation, and forced his limbs to exercise.
The movie never really followed through on the social commentary, instead leaning more on the humor and action as the bed essentially gained a mind of its own. Yes, Haruko worried about Takazawa, and it was clearly awful to just close an elderly man up in a machine and call it good as long as his vital signs were okay. That said...the bed really did take better care of Takazawa than Haruko was able to do - it could attend to his needs at all times, and even did its best to make him happy. I'm not sure that was the message viewers were supposed to get out of the movie, though.
Which doesn't even get into the movie's logical issues. I never could understand how anyone was supposed to believe that a bed like that would be more economical on a large scale than a healthcare system staffed by human nurses. And one thing in particular that the elderly hackers did - recreate a woman's voice based on nothing more than her picture - was completely unbelievable.
Overall, this wasn't necessarily a bad movie and had some memorable moments, but I'm not too torn up about it apparently being out of print. It was nice enough to watch for the twinge of nostalgia, but the visuals and sound effects definitely showed their age, and the humor was more awkward than funny.
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