To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about watching this film at first, because between the enigmatic tittle is a director who i really don't know much about or his previous featured movies. However, after seen this movie, I can say the character ‘‘Hirata’’ in this movie change my perspective about the director, in which i so much appreciate the harshness of the Icelandic climate where some major parts of the scene were shot.
Movie: Cold Fever (1995)
Genre: Drama / Mystery
Director: Friðrik Þór Friðriksson
Cast: Masatoshi Nagase, Lili Taylor, and Fisher Stevens
Synopsis: A Japanese businessman travels to Iceland and has a series of misadventures while venturing to a remote area to perform a traditional burial ritual where his parents died several years back. (Imdb)
Review: The films tells a story about a successful businessman, Masatoshi Nagase (Hirata) who goes on a hitch road trip and travels from Japan to Iceland to perform the last funeral rites following the death of his parents there, which he really don't fancy doing, but he had to swap his vacation in Hawaii to go on this trip due to how important the seven year death anniversary of his parents is certainly a significant event in Japanese culture. The simplicity of the plot is unparalleled in the underlying complexity that emerges from the whole.
It is a story that I assimilate to a tale! With a character whose problems doesn't seems to end after encountering lots of trials from his trip to a place where he doesn't seem to fit in with lots of challenges and the language barriers, which he found himself not being able to speak the Icelandic language at all, and also with a known very little English. Hirata goes from the Japanese urban jungle to the winter decorations of Iceland. He meets diverse and varied people who do not necessarily want him good, symbol of the trials he must go through in order to succeed in his mission. Or the various Icelandic traditions seem so strange to him that they become almost magical.
Overall, I would recommend this movie because its quite a good surprise considering it was a film coming out of Iceland. Also, its a well-written film with an amazing performances, and a superb direction. Fridrik Thor Fridrikson's simply delivers a remarkable film as he manage to give relief to this story and a rather singular rhythm thanks to the editing.
My Ratings: 9/10