Mind Game is currently streaming on HBO Max

Mind Game (2004)103 minAdventure, Animation, ComedyRating 66/100

Buckle in and prepare to surrender yourself to an exhilarating and wildly entertaining ride. Cult classic "Mind Game" is an explosion of unconstrained expression -- gloriously colorful images ricochet in rapid fire associations, like Masaaki Yuasa's brain splattered onto the screen in all its goopy glory. Audiences will begin to grasp what they are in for early on as loser Nishi, too wimpy to try to save his childhood sweetheart from gangsters, is shot in the butt by a soccer-playing psychopath, projecting Nishi into the afterlife. In this limbo, God -- shown as a series of rapidly changing characters -- tells him to walk toward the light. But Nishi runs like hell in the other direction and returns to Earth a changed man, driven to live each moment to the fullest.

Cast: Koji Imada, Sayaka Maeda, Takashi Fujii, Seiko Takuma, Tomomitsu Yamaguchi, Toshio Sakata, Jôji Shimaki

Director: Masaaki Yuasa