A Man Films Himself Walking Backwards in Tokyo… And Then Reverses the Video

Tokyo Reverse is a movie with a running time of 9 hours, and it was broadcasted in its entirety on a network in France. As strange as that sounds, the network is known to do things like this, and this clip from the film shows exactly how the entire thing was filmed: with a guy walking backwards.

It’s strange to look at on first glance, but you’ll notice how cleverly put it all really is as the clip goes on. Ludovic Zuili, the man in the video, films himself walking backwards in a way where it’d look like he was walking completely normally if the clip were to be reversed.

This is a technique that’s been used in films before many times, usually when the filmmakers needed an easy way to achieve an effect. There’s a film called Brother From Another Planet in which a man is filmed walking backwards, and then forwarded like this video; the reasoning was because the character in the movie was an alien humanoid, and showing reversed footage of him walking backwards gave the scene a slightly eerie vibe. I’d try finding a video, but there’s none with that scene as far as we’ve looked. The movie is, however, up in the public domain online so go check it out and see if you can spot the scene.

Try looking at this video the same way. Even with how perfectly the man has his backward walk down, his reversed walk still looks slightly off. All in all, this clip is an illusion, and an incredibly cool one at that. Things like the escalator sequence and the selfie he takes with those Tokyo girls are what make this clip both enjoyable and intriguing to watch.

[TOKYO REVERSE – EXTRAITS via This Is Colossal]