Symbol is a Japanese comedy film by Hitoshi Matsumoto from Downtown.
The movie makes use of two completely different plotlines, with the first one being about a Mexican wrestler named Escargot Man preparing for a fight. He has gotten older, and might not be as tough as he was, but he has a lot of support from his family, particularly his father, and his son Antonio.
In the second, more surreal plotline, a man (played by Matsumoto) wakes up in a white room with no exit, and finds a bunch of... odd looking buttons all over the walls. Whenever he presses one of them, it causes something to appear, like a vase, a lawn chair, a megaphone, etc.
These two plotlines seem incredibly different from one another, but they connect near the end in a way that you will not expect.
This film contains examples of the following:
- Accidental Discovery: While trying to find the sixth volume of a manga series, the man presses a button that opens an entryway on the wall behind him, which he believes leads to the exit.
- Bilingual Bonus: The film may be a Japanese one, but it also has 3 other languages! More specifically, while the Japanese comes from the plotline with the man in the room, the other plotline about a Mexican wrestler is all Spanish, as it takes place in Mexico. You'll also hear some English when the man comes up with plans to escape the room, and at the end of the film when he makes a rock star in New York breathe fire! Finally, you'll hear Russian when we cut to a Russian magician's act being messed up by the unwitting man.
- Billions of Buttons: There are buttons everywhere in the room that the man is locked in, and every time he presses one, something appears in the room.
- Epic Fail: The man tries to use a vase full of sushi to hold down the button that reveals the door, but he forgets where it is, and when he releases the tribesman while trying to find the right button, the tribesman bumps into the vase, causing it to crack, and foiling the man’s escape plan.
- MacGyvering: The man has several random items he could use to come up with a way to reach the exit, forcing him to get creative.
- No Name Given: Several characters never have their names revealed, like the man in the room, and some of Escargot Man’s relatives.
- Ontological Mystery: See You Wake Up in a Room.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The man has to use several items in the room to come up with a way to reach the exit, forcing him to use trial and error to figure it out.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: There are two plotlines, one about a Mexican wrestler, and one about a man in a white room with no way out. The two connect in a shocking way at the end.
- Visual Innuendo: The first button that the man sees, aka the only one in the room at the start, looks kinda suggestive, but after it’s pressed, a bunch of baby angels phase into the walls and back, leaving only their... stuff showing, and to the man’s shock, that’s what the buttons are.
- You Wake Up in a Room: The man in the room just wakes up in there with no idea where he is. It even provides the page image.
