10 Underrated Films From The Last 5 Years That Flew Way Under The Radar

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 88%

Box Office: $544,000

Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter is a highly embellished (but most definitely true to some extent) telling of the story of a Japanese woman who froze to death while allegedly searching for the cash-filled briefcase that Steve Buscemi buried on a snowy roadside in Coen Brothers film Fargo. It’s a crazy story, and it needed a suitably crazy performance, one that star Rinko Kikuchi delivered.

The synopsis might lead you to believe that this is something of a culture-clash movie, though that couldn’t be further from the truth. Indie writer/directors David and Nathan Zellner ignore obvious opportunities to poke fun at cultural differences, choosing to take a far more insular approach to their film, concentrating solely on a lonely and deeply troubled protagonist whose imagination transcends her mundane 9 to 5 life.

The film is beautifully shot, with David Zellner (who took on sole directing duty here) somehow making the metropolitan hub that is Tokyo feel as cold and unwelcoming as the North Dakota winter that Kumiko ends up in. It’s a feast for the ears, too, with electro-indie outfit The Octopus Project putting together a Sundance award winning companion score that is the feather in the cap of this nail-biting, thought-provoking movie.