And oddball movie title of the year goes to Miki Satoshi (director of the 2005 In The Pool), for Turtles are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers (Kame wa igai to hayaku oyogu), a quirky Japanese comedy from 2005 about a young woman who discovers that everybody is special no matter how ordinary they may seem on the outside.

Twenty-three-year-old Suzume "Sparrow" Katakura is a remarkably ordinary housewife, living an unremarkable life, with only her husband's turtle, Taro, to keep her company. Her days are spent whiling away the hours waiting for the regular phone calls from her husband who is overseas on business and whose only concern appears to be Taro's well being. Sparrow's life takes a more interesting turn one day when she fortuitously spots a tiny advertisement recruiting spies. Intrigued, she calls the number on the ad and several days later is contacted and instructed to go to a small apartment in town. An arrival she is greeted by an innocuous couple who claim to be "sleepers" – spies working for a foreign state who are awaiting instructions from their superiors. Impressed by Sparrow's "ordinariness" and her ability to go about her life unnoticed by others, they offer her a job and an advance payment of five million yen in cash. Accepting the offer, Sparrow begins a life as a spy and enters a whole new world where being ordinary is anything but.

Full of oddball characters – from a dancing hairdresser and a fitness-obsessed police chief to a lonely but amiable plumber and a chef whose main goal in life is to make average-tasting ramen noodles – Turtles are Surpisingly Fast Swimmers is an offbeat and colourful comedy reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie.

Turtles are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers will be released on UK DVD on 23rd February by Third Window Films at the RRP of £14.99. No extra features have been listed.