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 Remember MiniDV. You know. Camcorder verité.

• The Celebration (1998, Thomas Vinterberg)
• Julien Donkey-Boy (1999, Harmony Korine)
• Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier) 
• Chuck & Buck (2000, Miguel Arteta)
• The Original Kings of Comedy (2000, Spike Lee)
• Bamboozled (2000, Spike Lee)
• 28 Days Later (2002, Danny Boyle)
• Personal Velocity (2002, Rebecca Miller)
• 24 Hour Party People (2002, Michael Winterbottom)
• Party Monster (2002)
• Visitor Q (2002, Takashi Miike)
• Scarlet Diva (2002, Asia Argento)
• Full Frontal (2002, Steven Soderbergh)
• Doppelganger (2003, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
• The Girl from Monday (2003, Hal Hartley)
• Inland Empire (2006, David Lynch)

What an exclusive group. Worth delving further into are which of these were shot on what were distinctly referred to as either prosumer or consumer models. The prosumer rigs typically either Sony or Canon. Maybe some Panasonic?

Third act break. Seventy minutes in. HAYASAKI has completed the Artificial Body. He smokes a cigarette. But we know Hayasaki doesn’t smoke only his Double does. Then Hayasaki wielding a boulder bludgeons his Double. We know it’s his double lying there bloody because the Double whistles that tune but Hayasaki doesn’t.   
     Later Hayasaki pushes Kimishima over a cliff and afterwards when he gets in the van he whistles the tune. Hayasaki gets run over by a truck and dies. The Double rescues YUKA and tells her Forget about the past no revenge no memories which all makes perfect sense if you remember early in the film Yuka talking about her brother says if you see your exact double then you die. 
     Is it just me or did you expect Hayasaki to figure out a way to get rid of his Double? Is it because that’s what usually happens in movies of this genre? Is it because I thought embracing your Jungian shadow meant then you get rid of it? Is it because that’s what happens to the Palahniuk Fincher narrative device figment of Jack’s imagination? 
     That’s the dark twist in Doppelganger (2003, Kiyoshi Kurosawa). The self doesn’t integrate the shadow. The shadow integrates the self. Everything I thought I knew about my own morality flushed down the drain. This kind of genre subversion is everything.
 
If you think about the characters that populate the world of this film they’re all petty miserable nobodies stuck in intractable pursuits of capitalist mutually exploitative accomplishments for all the wrong reasons. Which is you know fun cause it’s exactly like real life. 
     An underlying theme in Doppelganger could be individualism vs conformity. We’re misdirected by everyone else treating the Double as if he’s despicable. But he’s adaptable. Hayasaki is inflexible. The narrative interrogates which way our perceptions lean in which of these two characters we identify with sympathize with empathize with root for.
     And what about Yuka? That first time the Double puts the moves on her I thought he was Hayasaki. Pretty sure the narrative wanted me to too. How do you feel about the way he comes onto her? What about that she comes back? What about how she seems to linger then recoil from Hayasaki’s subsequent advance? What do you think she means when she tells him It’s hard to tell if [he’s] a warm person or a cold person? What does Yuka mean by warm? Which is which?
 
Doppelganger is a prosumer MiniDV shot psychological thriller comedy tech espionage internal conflict predestined meaning of life road movie. It’s tone may seem light for a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film but it’s never disappointing.