One Cut Of The Dead. (15.)
Directed by Shinichiro Ueda.
Starring Takayuki Hamatsu, Yuzuki Akiyama, Harumi Shuhama, Kazuaki Nagaya, Hiroshi Ichihara, Mao. In Japanese with subtitles. 96 mins.
The title suggests that quite a lot has been lost in translation for this Japanese comedy horror, but in its clumsy way it does sum up the premise – a zombie movie made in one single take, with no cuts or edits. It's also a meta single take Japanese Comedy horror because it's about a film crew making a zombie movie in a remote location who, wouldn't you know it, get caught up in a real zombie attack.
The opening scene has the director attacking his star for her poor acting, which seems harsh as everybody else's acting is pretty appalling too. Indeed, almost everything in the film is terrible and doesn't make a lick of sense. After around 20 minutes I was cursing my gullibility in believing the pre-publicity that this was something special and wondering how they were going to drag this out for another hour or so.
There is, of course, a twist, or rather plot development that suddenly means it all makes sense but it comes just a bit too far into the film to reveal here: I don't want to be the modern equivalnet of the reviewer who tells you Janet Leigh gets killed off early in Psycho. Even then the film isn't especially effective but it is novel and more than passably inventive.
Directed by Shinichiro Ueda.
Starring Takayuki Hamatsu, Yuzuki Akiyama, Harumi Shuhama, Kazuaki Nagaya, Hiroshi Ichihara, Mao. In Japanese with subtitles. 96 mins.
The title suggests that quite a lot has been lost in translation for this Japanese comedy horror, but in its clumsy way it does sum up the premise – a zombie movie made in one single take, with no cuts or edits. It's also a meta single take Japanese Comedy horror because it's about a film crew making a zombie movie in a remote location who, wouldn't you know it, get caught up in a real zombie attack.
The opening scene has the director attacking his star for her poor acting, which seems harsh as everybody else's acting is pretty appalling too. Indeed, almost everything in the film is terrible and doesn't make a lick of sense. After around 20 minutes I was cursing my gullibility in believing the pre-publicity that this was something special and wondering how they were going to drag this out for another hour or so.
There is, of course, a twist, or rather plot development that suddenly means it all makes sense but it comes just a bit too far into the film to reveal here: I don't want to be the modern equivalnet of the reviewer who tells you Janet Leigh gets killed off early in Psycho. Even then the film isn't especially effective but it is novel and more than passably inventive.
