9(Nine) Souls starts out with 10 men sharing a prison cell, as they eat a meal in the cell one of the men becomes increasingly animated and seems to have lost his mind. As he is dragged from the cell he shouts the whereabouts of a hidden treasure to the others.

One of the 9 remaining prisoners is a famous jail breaker and finds a way for them to get out. As the men make a dash for freedom having emerged from a manhole, presumably having crawled through the sewers in their escape, the film's hip music comes in and the director Toshiaki Toyoda (Blue Spring, Pornostar) freeze frames on each of the nine individuals. In the momentary freezes, subtitles announce each characters name, the crime he committed, and the time he was serving in prison. Not only is this a cool scene but it also serves the dual purpose of introducing us to the nine leads and giving us a glimpse of their back stories, but also lets us know that to a man these people have committed a range of pretty despicable acts. By choosing characters who have committed acts of terror, murder of family members and friends, hardcore pornographers and alike Toyoda instantly robs the audience of the classic hero or even anti hero such as the cool Yakuza gangster to route for. It is clear that he is prepared to work to make you feel any kind of empathy or understanding of his characters. To add to this one of the first acts of freedom some of the men indulge in is the sodomising of a ram, the only qualm they seem to have with this is the fact it’s male and even then this is quickly dismissed as a problem.

One of the strange things about this tale of men escaping prison is the fact they stick together on escaping rather than splitting up and there for giving each individual more chance of evading capture, in the interviews with the director on the DVD he says this is based on a real life break he heard about in Texas where the escapees did just that. In the movie the plot device used is that of the treasure they are searching for known as the "key to the universe" which holds them together.

The escapees relieve a man who foolishly picks up nine men at night of his battered old red van and it is this vehicle that they spend the majority of the movie travelling across Japan in search of there prize and revealing more about there own back storeys and the many facets of their characters.

When I review films I try to avoid the classic blow by blow style which basically turns out to be more of a synopsis of the films plot. Not that there is anything wrong with that, in fact I guess that’s what some people look for, but I prefer to convey the feeling and style of the film and give an idea of why I feel it is to be sought out or avoided. In the case of a complex drama such as this describing the films feel is a little more difficult than say a bloody horror or exciting action film. 9 Souls feels surreal, but is not quite surrealism for the most part its what I would describe as “stylised normality.” Acts that seem somewhat surreal to us are less so when you consider just who these men are and how long they have been behind bars. If there is such thing as a normal person, then even he or she would be warped by sentences stretching well over a decade behind bars away from society and these guys by the acts they had already committed started off pretty far from normal in the first place. Nine Souls is a very brave, very hip, very well made and exceedingly clever drama which draws you in minute by minute. Its one of those movies that studies human nature without judging it, it just presents the story, shows us the characters and then with only the aid of ludicrously cool, but very fitting music and great direction lets us make up our own minds about that which we are seeing. The simple tale of prisoners on the run, turns into one of the best observations of the “Human Condition” I have ever seen, the film explores relationships, between the men, their past, the friends their families and with the world. It looks at the idea of freedom, what it is, if it exists and what it really means. It does not try to answer any of the questions it raises as that would take it into the realms of pretentiousness and it is clear Toyoda has no interest in going there. The questions raised are just for the audience to think over either as little or as much as they wish. The acting in this movie is first rate, there is no weak link among the nine leads each of them bringing a different and wonderful presence to the movie. This movie takes us on a joyride through the full spectrum of human emotion being equally happy as it is sad, comic as it is tragic, surreal as it is normal and so on. Toshiaki Toyoda 9 souls is not quite a masterpiece, but it’s close and I for one think there are some very great movies yet to come from this director.

To Sum up, 9 Souls is a bit like a beautiful river, if you look at the surface at an angle you can just take in the beauty of the river it self, but if you wish you can choose to look directly into the water and gaze at the miracles of life occurring beneath the surface.