In the last twenty years, the "zom-com" has had a burgeoning rise throughout the world. A major proponent in this rise as of late is SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Films take the zombie genre and twist it into all sorts of bizarre directions. Sakichi Satô's TOKYO ZOMBIE is no different. It's essentially a buddy comedy immersed in the apocalyptic environs of Tokyo where a zombie plague(..caused by the polluted industrial waste buried in a rubbish heap containing the buried dead, murdered by others using this area to escape crime conviction)rises from a mountain of trash nicknamed "Black Fuji". Two working class Japanese men, older bald Mitsuo(Sho Aikawa)and his "Jujitsu student", Fujio(Tadanobu Asano) must bury their disgruntled boss after accidentally killing him after a clunk over the noggin with a fire extinguisher. They bury him in Black Fuji, encounter the dead, and must find a way out of Tokyo with designs of tripping to Russia so Fujio can "become a man"(..because Russia is a "tough country"). Mitsuo reveals to his protégé that he's dying of stomach cancer and soon, after Fujio forgets to grab a toothbrush and cigarettes when taking food from an abandoned grocery store, they discover a young women, Yoko(Erika Okuda), who expresses firmly her resistance towards joining up with them. Yet, Mitsuo insists and loads her in their van against her will, getting bit in the process(..the bite is an amusing gag, revealed at the end of the film). Soon, the van is stolen by another bald guy, Mitsuo leaps off a bridge presumably to his death, with Fujio and Yoko left to squabble endlessly slapping each other around before diving off a bridge to escape zombies coming towards them. Soon, Tokyo falls to ruin, a massive wall is constructed around a giant pyramid with the poor and zombies used as slaves for the rich(..which seem to be mostly loud, demanding women), & Fujio takes the fighting lessons taught to him by his mentor into a ring where he battles zombies for an audience who voices their criticism when his matches end early.
The character of Fujio is run through the ringer. His only means of resolve comes from his dedication to Mitsuo, who his fights are won for in the respect of Jujitsu. He is burdened by the shackles of a marriage to the insufferable Yoko, his daughter is mute(..and adorable), his boss(..the ring announcer)wants to have sexual relations(..always coming from behind Fujio, attempting to engage in carnal activity, socked by kicks for his trouble), his best friend is seemingly gone forever, and he must endure the hardships of poverty, dealing with constant combat against foes whose bite can kill, and deal with the constant angered boos of a despicable audience. The poor guy barely hangs in there. Before all this misery, the film seemed to work as a confined story about two men against the backdrop of a fallen city, which I think works rather well since both actors have good chemistry with each other. Jujitsu is a major part of their relationship as Mitsuo uses this skill as a means to prepare him for a harsh world. When Yoko is introduced, Mitsuo leaves the film for a while, and we enter the last leg of Fujio's story, the film became a bit of a trial for me. There's a dark, perverted sense of humor(..pedophilia gags galore, and a group of children attempt to hold up an office worker with a knife)and the expected zombie gore is present(..the violence is so over-the-top, it becomes a parody of the zombie films that came before). Lots of unusual images through the use of CGI and plenty of histrionics by the cast who have animated faces and reactions towards each other(..particularly when characters assault each other). The Black Fuji sequence, at the on-set, is simply bizarre.
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