Stray Dog doesn’t quite live up to the precedent of expectation left by the mouth watering and bizarre first episode, Red Spectacles, in this Keberos trilogy. The film takes place before the events of Koichi’s return in the first film, and in fact serves as a sort of prequel with Koichi being linked to criminal organisations and the stolen Keberos armour suit still in his posession.

With no Midori or Ao, the character rbought in this time is Koichi’s subordinate Inui, whom the film revoles around almsot entirely. For much of the film we follow Inui’s attempts to find his master, unable to understand why he escaped, deserting his friends and colleagues in the midst of battle. He heads to vietnam where’s he met by an operative that helps escaped fugitives. Playing the neautrality card he is both a help, hindrance and messenger with regards to incidents involving the special unit and the escapees.

Along the way Inui discovers Mie, a girl associated with Koichi in some form, either by relationship or simply as a sympathiser. Inui and Mie head out in the open country, locating clues about Koichi’s wherabouts, with Inui not quite sure what he will do upon meeting him. At the same time, it’s obvious he’s developing feelings for Mie. When they discover Koichi by sheer luck, the Oshii madness and confusion begins, but as with the first film it all come to fruition at the end.

The locations and cinematography are far richer than the previous film, with beautiful wide shots of sunny beaches against dense, and strongly saturated sunsets and sunrises. An interesting technique used during the film is film along narrow busy streets and alleyways, which imply a journey and wandering as we follow the two initial characters meandering across from house to house, destiantion to destination. It’s both wonderfully interesting and utterly dull. It’s interesting for the first five minutes or so, but it feels as though the method runs on and on and on, turning into a sort of self parody of it’s intention, and becoming dull. My eyes started to close shut as the never ending wanderings continued until eventually they halted for a conversation between Hayada and Inui regarding Koichi.

It’s far more of a story and has a lot more narrative too. I’m not sure if this is a good thing, and the more I think about it seems much to its detriment

Story wise the film continues, and explains much of the events that take place during the first film. Though it’s also partially confusing due to some of the comments made at the end of the first film. This begs the question as to what was contained in the suitcase intiailly and whether Inui was the last to use and was left with the item that Koichi had escaped with. The whereabouts of Mie are left unknown, and Koichi;s initial ambition is still left unsatisfactorily inexplicable.

With it not being as visually creative either is quite a disappointment, with some madness being set out, such as the mime-like make-up soldiers that walk around wearing long rain coats and leotards with white trainers. It defintiely retains the weirdness of the first film, but there’s nothing punchy or striking about it as with the first film, that treated you to creativity overload.

The locations and cinematography are far richer than the previous film, with beautiful wide shots of sunny beaches against dense, and strongly saturated sunsets and sunrises

It’s far more of a story and has a lot more narrative too. I’m not sure if this is a good thing, and the more I think about it seems much to its detriment. There’s still the over the top action and ffight scenes that are exagerrated beyond belief, perhaps intentionally farcical to imply something about action films, or simply as part of the remit for the film. There’s no indiciation, however, as to why Inui feels the need to risk so much – although there is a brief glance at the reasoning: he is the dog, and Koichi is his master, and therefore as a faithful servant, he must ask his master for an order. It feels a bit weak, considering the consequences of what occurs in the aftermath – perhaps it serves as a metaphor for war, or soldiers in combat; it’s difficult to say with such vague narrative.

Stray Dog is not up to the same level of entertainment as Red Spectacles, taking fewer risks with both ideas and plot, and really coming off as a duller, much more bland addition to the series thus far. It just feels too normal after the extravgance of Red Spectacles, so on that merit it’s rather average. On it’s own, it’s a confusing collection of scenes, and the arty filming at times will simply baffle the viewer into wondering whether they’re watching a feature or a documentary-type tourist video of Thailand.

Verdict: Bland, average prequel-cum-sequel to the enjoyable Red Spectacle