Tôkyô zonbi

This movie was way too long. It has left me so cold and disinterested that I struggle to even trash the damned thing!

There are some amusing scenes (not funny, just amusing) but some, like the one where bald man (I forget his name) says he has cancer, that seem to go on for an eternity.

I used to be a stickler for uncut movies but lately I've come around to the position that maybe the distributer and producers were sometimes right to reign in the excesses of wannabe epics, especially ones where so little actually happens that you can probably describe the whole 104 minutes in a few sentences.

This isn't so much a zombie picture as a character study that just happens to have zombies in it and the characters are a bunch of idiotic whiners.

If you want to see a good Asian zombie flick, go check out one called Bio Zombie. It's actually funny (not just amusing), has a better buddy sub-plot, and has real action and suspense.

"Tokyo Zombie" is exactly what you would expect from a zombie movie from Japan; being cheesy, Japanese people painted ashen-gray, and an overall exaggeration of everything.

The story in "Tokyo Zombie" was actually alright. We follow the two very odd, both in appearance and personality, friends Fujio (played by Tadanobu Asano) and Mitsuo (played by Shô Aikawa), working at a fire-extinguisher factory. The people of Tokyo are burying their trash and their dead at Black Fuji, a black mountain of garbage. Toxic waste starts to reanimate the dead buried there, and the zombies start shambling stiffly about, looking for human flesh to devour. And soon after, Tokyo is in a lot of trouble...

The acting in this movie was as you'd expect, adequate and silly. Lots of overacting here and the zombies were just hilarious. You need to approach this movie with no sense of an actual serious zombie movie. This is a zombie comedy spoof, and it have so many elements that seen to be making fun of a lot of Romero's movies. So think of a Japanese version of an extreme version of "Shaun of the Dead", then you will have a rough idea of what "Tokyo Zombie" is like.

"Tokyo Zombie" is extreme in so many ways, but it works out well enough, because it is extreme in a hilarious way. I believe that "Tokyo Zombie" is either a movie that you will love or hate, I don't see any in-between here. I found "Tokyo Zombie" to be a fun movie to watch, it was a nice spoof of a zombie movie, in the way that only the Japanese can manage to bolster up.

TOKYO ZOMBIE is an oddball 'Buddy Flic' within 'The Genre Of The Undead". Director, Sakichi Sato, who is probably best known for playing Charlie Brown in Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film KILL BILL:VOL. I, has crafted a horror film of equal parts buffoonery and blood. Whatever ironic elements that were inherent to classic Horror are ramped up and played as belly laughs. SHAWN OF THE DEAD is certainly a prime example of this trend. Tadanobu Asano is a highly regarded Japanese model and film star, and plays Fujio,the fright-wig wearing half of the dimwitted duo. Asano is better known for his more serious roles, yet is able to deliver the laughs as required. However, both lead roles remain sketchy, and the film strives for more character development in the second half of the movie, but doesn't go far enough. TOKYO ZOMBIE will probably best be appreciated by aficionados of contemporary Japanese art films, while the majority of viewers will be left in the dark.

Fujio (Tadanobu Asano) and Mitsuo (Sho Aikawa) spend their free time wrestling. Their boss interrupts one day and starts yelling at them. After an apparent heart attack, them dump him on the Black Fuji, a mountain of trash that contains everything - including bodies.

The chemicals in the mountain cause the dead to rise, and now Tokyo has some real problems.

You might think that writer/director Sakichi Satô would give us another Ichi the Killer, but you would be wrong. The blood is minimal. This is a comedy. There are a lot of people losing their heads, but no little gore.

The good thing is that they are real zombies, and you can outrun them.

After five years, Tokyo is completely zombified. Fujio is stuck with Yoko (Erika Okuda), a girl Mitsuo saved before he was bitten, and those that are not zombies are slaves for the rich.

Things do get really funny at the end, and a little crazy, too.

I just wish they wouldn't have repeatedly used the "R" word.

Two Japanese friends accidentally kill their boss and dump his remains in Black Fuji, a mountain/landfill hybrid. This leads to poor results when the chemicals of the landfill mix with the corpse (and many other corpses) to give rise to a zombie infestation in Tokyo.

This is a pretty bizarre film. Two men fight zombies with jujitsu. Not swords, not guns, but face-smashing jujitsu. One of them has a 'fro haircut while the other is bald. It's just an odd pairing. The film has been called the Japanese "Shaun of the Dead". I see it. I think it's a stretch, but I see it. Comparisons to other recent Japanese films, such as "Machine Girl", seem more appropriate -- there's a similar style of dark humor and violence coupled with cheesy CGI.

There's also an attempt to connect this to "Ichi the Killer". Don't be fooled by that. "Ichi", along with essentially all the work of Miike, is better than this film. "Q", "Audition", and others just put "Tokyo Zombie" to shame. Perhaps it has the same writer, but the fact this film was based off a manga is evident and infuses a humor that doesn't play as well in live action.

This film's biggest flaw is a lack of zombies. Sure, we have plenty of zombies, but there still seems to be a shortage -- there are periods of up to ten minutes without zombie action. These scenes are often filled with sentimental blather. Maybe in the original language this comes off better, but I had little interest in hearing people talk sentimentally to each other.

Typically I watch films while drinking, but due to a cold I was not drinking during this one. That is unfortunate. While this movie was above average, it would have been even better with alcohol. The humor is lame at some points, and is either a cultural thing or just plain dumb. I'm uncertain. But all I know is that parts that were clearly meant to be funny fell flat for me.

If you like "Machine Girl", I'd say give this one a chance. Perhaps even if you liked "Shaun of the Dead", though the connection is slight. A double feature with this film and a stronger Japanese film, such as "Battle Royale", would make for a good evening. Show this one first, of course. It's decent but by no means a headliner.