Death Kappa

After seeing the trailer I was stoked at a chance to see Death Kappa. I was looking forward to a fun B-movie. Unfortunately, Death Kappa gives B- movies a bad name. The problem isn't in the content. The problem is in the directing, acting, editing and cinematography, to name a few. Death Kappa's over stylized shots don't flow well and really drive the film into the ground. The Movie also contains possibly the most annoying song ever used in a film which painfully repeats throughout. I would compare Death Kappa to a bad episode of Power Rangers as far as over all feel, but thats being generous. Iv'e seen much better movies at community college film screenings.

This is a weird one to say the least. The tone is all over the place. Much of it has the goofy tone of the later Showa Godzilla or Gamera movies. Then it will toss in some weird body horror stuff or someone doing the machine gun dance like he's in a Tarantino movie. The first part is a disjointed thing about a Kappa, a J-pop singer and some crazy scientist who wants to make fish supersoldiers and conquer the world or something. Then it suddenly becomes a whole different movie about halfway through. Now it's a parody of 70s Kaiju movies complete with period models effects and the JSDF being useless. It's kind of funny for fans of those movies I guess but it drags on for way too long. Then it has one of hose head-scratching "There's a little Godzilla in all of us" endings. Fans of the genre will know what I mean. There is some amusement value in this for fans of those old kaiju movies but they are few and far between. Mostly, it's just goofy nonsense that goes nowhere. If you want to get some amusement from 70s kaiju movie tropes, just watch the original movies. This isn't really worth your time.

So I'm going to be writing a list article about weird monster movies in a couple of days. I've already seen a bunch, but for "research," I feel compelled to watch more (these are the kind of movies I'd probably watch either way, to be honest).

Death Kappa was at the top of my shortlist. This is mainly due to it being called "Death Kappa." I can't really resist a movie when it's called "Death Kappa."

It basically feels like a homage/parody of old-school giant monster movies, though the titular monster is the only monster in it for a while, and so there aren't even any giant monsters for like the first 2/3s of the movie. But that's okay. It means he can get in hand-to-hand fights with the human bad guys in the first half, some of whom wield samurai swords. It's that kind of movie.

The plot? Uh... there's a young woman who has some sort of connection to a kappa monster, who lives in a lake, and is super ugly, but he also has a good heart and wants to protect her. He saves her from some bad guys. Then another more evil monster (who's big) starts attacking a city. From there, it feels like a more comedic take on a giant monster movie.

I don't know if this is even good, but I had fun throughout. I was trying to do some push-ups while watching it (exercise and movie-watching: killing two birds with one stone), and for the most part, I couldn't, because I was laughing too hard at many of the scenes. There's a song that gets played a couple of times, and the ridiculous lyrics (at least from the translated English subtitles) are amazing.

Death Kappa is absolutely an acquired taste, but I think I'm the target audience, so I liked it. I don't know who else I could recommend it to, though.

For me it all began with a simple tweet of the movie critic Harry Knowles I got to read. He was watching, with his nephew I think, the Blu-Ray of DEATH KAPPA and writing in twitter that they were amazed (and that the kid was like "I can do that in my backyard" regarding some scenes of the movie!). Later I read in a Fangoria magazine that the director of "Kappa" wanted to make with it the TEAM America of Japanese monster movies! So I saw the trailer (which is quite awesome), realized it has the same producers of TOKYO GORE POLICE and THE MACHINE GIRL and added it to my list of must-wanted movies.

I just received the Blu-Ray last Thursday and on Friday night I finally got immerse in the world of the Kappas (it was the very last movie I saw in 2011!). The movie was everything I hoped for and then some. I mean, it's indeed a classic monster picture but there are certain elements that I didn't expect and that are pretty darn ridiculous, in the good and hilarious way! First of all, the look of the main character (a kappa – not *really* a monster but a "creature of legend", as we are told. A creature that actually knows sumo!) is likely the most bizarre you'll see in a 2010 picture! The Kappa is as ugly as f***, and once you have it dancing to some song for children, well you just have some truly WTF moment.

The movie is some sort of a spectacle of the "do it as you can" kind of filmmaking. I don't know if that makes any sense, but what I'm trying to say is that DEATH KAPPA is the kind of movie that doesn't give a s***. More than to TEAM America (that is a masterpiece of a movie with scale models), it is closer to SOUTH PARK. Remember those *real* explosions mixed with the animation from that TV show? Well, here we have that kind of thing with, for instance, images of buildings being destroyed. Plus, we have visible wires and all that kind of things. Certainly some will get it and go for it (as I did) and some will not at all, just like some will not forgive the completely over-the-top acting or just the entire first part of the movie (certainly the part without any of the Godzilla-like material).

And that first part of the movie delivers some WTF moments (like the one I mentioned) but it is mostly just something forgettable. We are here for the monster action and believe me, it is quite fun. The very last part, the monster fight, is quite the s***. Hell, we have the kappa (in its gigantic monster form, known as death kappa) showing us some fighting movements with a nunchaku-like weapon! It is just some very cool Japanese stuff.

I am a fan of even the lowliest of Kaiju movies...if you build a monster, I will come.

But this is just the worst. It is a non-stop goof-fest of silly songs, cutely dancing goblins that look like they were invented for a McDonald's commercial and a nemesis monster that can't even seem to move properly. Not even the 90s Mothra movies were this childish, and I swear that some of the horrible American voice-overs are the same actors from those films, hamming it up one more time at our expense.

At times the movie tries to seem like a spoof of Kaiju movies, but it can't even do that properly. The guys at MSTK3000 need to come back for this one, if only because I need to get a laugh or something out of having watched it. Thanks for reading. I will now go cut out my eyes, douse them in gasoline and set them on fire.