Jigoku Kôshien

Ever wanted to see an action / comedy / musical about baseball playing zombies? Don't lie, you know you do.

Jubei Yakyû (Tak Sakaguchi) is a poor student, transferred from school to school. He is a great baseball player, but he won't allow himself to play, that is until his new school, Seido High has to face the Gedo High School team, a team of baseball-playing zombies, whose stadium is apparently not to subject to any laws. Awesome.

'Battlefield Baseball' is nothing but 90 minutes of insanity: packed with fights, deadly baseball matches, all sorts of strange characters, musical numbers, crazy dialog, the most convenient and bizarre plot twists, and all-round awesomeness, 'Battlefield Baseball' is one bizarre, but very funny movie.

Don't watch 'Battlefield Baseball' with any expectations, and don't take it seriously at all, and you should enjoy it. Especially if you like awesomeness - 8/10

BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL (3 outta 5 stars) Okay, this is a low budget movie... they didn't have a lot of money to spend on big action scenes (or realistic-looking gore)... but, dang, it was still a lot of fun! How can you not love a movie about a high school baseball team that has to fight an evil team that slaughters everyone they play against... and takes time out for a few musical ballads along the way? I'm not generally a fan of these "funny" Asian action movies... I prefer the more serious ones... but this movie was too outrageous for me not to enjoy. A sullen young teen who has sworn off baseball due to a childhood tragedy is the only one who can help Seido High defeat the ultra-violent psychos... but come game time he is locked away in a prison cell... will he get out in time? Don't worry about the movie making too much sense... it doesn't... but I loved the team of bad guys, particularly the head coach who is one of the coolest looking villains ever. He looks something like Jim Carrey in "The Mask"... but dressed like Marlon Brando in "The Missouri Breaks". The extremely round-eyed Bancho that we meet at the start of the movie is pretty funny, too. The movie plays out like a feature length Monty Python sketch... so if absurdity is not your thing you should probably see something else.

From director Yudia Yamaguchi, the same mind behind the insane Meatball Machine, Yakuza Weapon, and equally insane, Chromartie High The Movie, comes something like you've never seen before. The over-rated, but likeable Tak Sakaguchi stars in this insane, wacky and totally messed up adaptation of a popular manga, where schools (of adults) face each other in deadly games of baseball. With exploding balls, brutal weapons, and opponents that are zombies, the film starts the insanity from the get-go and doesn't let up for its full running time!

Remade in 2011 as Deadball, with Tak back in the same role, this low-budget insanity is filled with ridiculously bad dialogue, over-the-top acting, silly fight scenes, and wild FX that go from looking great to looking so bad its funny. Produced by Versus director, Ryuhei Kitamura, of which Tak was first introduced to the world, Battlefield Baseball offers musical numbers, violence, martial arts, daft plot twists, and insane characters. Its as if Kitamura told Chow Sing Chi, Wong Jing and Jeff Lau that there was a $1000 budget, and to give him some ideas for a sports themed film. Its just plain mental. But alas, I have seen some pages from the original manga, and to be honest, its even more insane.

There's just far too much going on to try and put into words, but I can't deny that it is a lot of fun, incredibly silly, but highly entertaining for the most of its running time!

Not to be taken seriously by any means...

Overall: It makes Shaolin Soccer seem almost like a serious drama. Has to be seen to be believed!

Battlefield Baseball (2003) is a fine adaptation of a Japanese manga comic. The movie is very close to the original source. It's filled with cheesy sentiment, cartoon violence, music and over exaggerated slapstick humor. A high school baseball team's manager wants to take his team to the next level. But he's been plagued by a re-occurring nightmare. A team of zombie players has crushed and killed his team in brutal fashion. One day his worse fears come true when he looks into the paper and finds his team playing against the undead brutal team from Gedo. The manage and school officials know that the team doesn't stand a chance against this team. Unless he can convince the new transfer student to play for his school's baseball team. Will the new kid play for the team? Do they have a chance against the undead ball team? Find out when you watch Battlefield Baseball!!

Not a classic film but it's highly entertaining. It's a total manga film so be prepared for cheesy melodrama, exaggerated violence, adult humor and musical numbers!!

Highly recommended.

BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL (2004) This low-budget baseball zombie comedy is arguably a mixed bag, but one likely to develop a sizable cult following. While it successfully pokes fun at the cliches inherent in most sports movies, particularly those `moments' where people spontaneously applaud the main characters actions (similarly mocked in NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE), it doesn't deliver on the action and gore quotient promised by the concept. And yet, as a budget-conscious live-action adaptation of a Shonen Jump manga, it plants tongue hard in cheek and certainly feels faithful to the source material, never for a minute taking itself seriously and gleefully indulging in the most eye-rollingly obvious visual gags. Desperate to make it to the big leagues, the Seido High School baseball team must face their much more successful rivals at Gedo High, a team made up entirely of well-armed zombies. Their ace in the hole may well be transfer student `Jubeh The Baseball' (Tak Sakaguchi), who's signature fastball killed his own father, a tragedy which prevents him from helping the team. Directed by the writer of VERSUS (Yudai Yamiguchi), produced by that film's director (Ryuhei Kitamura) and starring that film's lead (Tak Sakaguchi), BATTLEFIELD shares that film's low-budget ingenuity, but wisely knows when to take up stakes and call it a day around the 90 minute mark. The Japanese R2 DVD has English subs and includes a hilariously inventive short film called Ramen Baka Ichidai, about a kid who hunts down the perfect Ramen noodles for his dying grandfather. Primo stuff.