One night, while she has a date with Yuichi, she meets Keigo by chance and chooses to go with him, leaving a frustrated Yuichi standing. Although she has a “commercial” relationship with Yuichi, the one she truly wants is Keigo Masuo, a spoiled, playboy student who does not share the same feelings. One of these girls is Yoshino Ishibashi, a young insurance saleswoman, who has moved into the dorm the company offers, despite her father’s protests. To deal with this problem, he frequently enters dating sites, where he meets girls, but ends up paying them for sex instead of trying to form a relationship with them. He works as a blue-collar day labourer, and has to take care of his grandparents, which does not leave him with much time to take care of himself or find a girlfriend. Yuichi Shimizu is a young man living with his grandparents, since his mother has abandoned him. The script is based on the homonymous novel by Shuichi Yoshida. Nishimura’s usual aspects are also present: constant bloodbaths, surreal humor, impressive battles and a rudimentary effort for social remark, specifically concerning drugs and racism.Įihi Shiina as Kika is remarkable as usual.īeing a Zainichi Korean, Lee Sang-il had always a rather different perspective toward film than his Japanese colleagues, which has his films standing apart, despite the fact that they follow most tendencies of the local cinema. Furthermore, the zombie boxer, the guards with the peculiar helmets, and a fighting scene involving a kind of pole dancing are only a few of the irrational scenes and notions appearing here.
Nishimura, as usual, incorporates as much absurdity as possible in the film, starting with the movie’s titles that appear after almost half an hour has passed. The government hires Kika, who is now a skilled zombie killer, to lead a team of outlaws to the north to kill the zombie queen. Some years later, the country is split in half by a wall that separates the healthy population of the south part from the zombies in the north. Subsequently, a meteorite falls on Rikka, releasing a toxic gas that transforms every resident of northern Japan into a zombie, and her into their queen. During the act, his daughter Kika arrives and attacks the couple. Taku and his sister Rikka are a couple of roaming sadistic murderers who eventually decide to kill her abandoned husband. Splatter could be missing from this list, and who else to represent the category but the master of gore? “Helldriver” is another preposterous splatter film by Yoshihiro Nishimura, this time engaging with zombies. Nevertheless, with a focus on diversity, here is the list with the 25 best Japanese films of the last seven years, in another compilation that could easily include 50 or more titles and a completely different order.Ģ5. At the same time, the “underground” splatter industry seems to thrive as always. However, deep down in the depths of the industry, something seems to be moving again during the last few years, with a number of new filmmakers presenting extreme but rather interesting new movies, in a tendency that may manage to lift the industry once more, although it is still early for any definite indications.
This tendency has led to a lack of original movies and the shrinking of the independent industry. The structural issues of the industry and the lack of interest from younger audiences have led the production companies to the secure paths of the family drama and the novel/manga/anime adaptation, which seem to generate the most revenue. Japanese cinema has been on the decline for quite a few years.