Death Kappa

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.

Sometimes I wonder just how they manage to sell films like this to potential producers; whether they simply say 'It's about a Kappa that destroys stuff' and hope they don't ask for any further details, or if they have to ask them sit down and brace themselves whilst they explain exactly what they want this film to do. At least here they sold it to the right people; the producers who gave us 'Tokyo Gore Police' and 'Machine Girl' are on board, and that for me automatically seals the deal, I'm on board for the ride too. And this is one hell of a ride; this is the sort of B-Movie that makes Troma look like it's being serious; that harks back to Japan's glory days of Godzilla, mocking it as it proceeds. It's completely self aware and everything from the effects work to the choreography of the fights has been done to exemplify that, finding the humour in it all. They've succeeded in making this film thoroughly dreadful, cheapening everything to the point of no return and in exchange they've delivered upon one of the most hilarious films I've seen.

When a pop star realises she hasn't got any talent, she resolves to travel back home to her grandparents so as to look after them like they looked after her as a teenager. Unfortunately their reunion is cut short when a group of speeding teens run over her granny and drive off (don't worry, Kappa gets revenge for her); her final words? "Protect Kappa." Cut to our mythical creatures specialist and we learn that a Kappa is a wrestling, cucumber loving, goblin/turtle who lives in lakes. And he just happens to love dancing to our protagonists brand of pop, much to the delight of our cute but completely insane scientist. Using her music against her to attempt to capture the Kappa for her research, first undergone by her now deceased grandfather, she sets to work fusing Kappa DNA with humans to create amphibious super soldiers. Well naturally this plan screws up so she detonates a nuclear warhead that must have misfired as all it did was create a monster that springs up to attack Tokyo Godzilla style. Who will save the country? Why that giant Kappa will of course!

Bear in mind that this is a film clocking in at less than 80 minutes and you'll see just how tight the pacing is here. It doesn't spend any longer than the absolute minimum explaining itself so it can get on with the parody, firing pun after pun within this joke of a film. The film is unquestionably divided between the two sections; the opening forty minutes a mini-film that alludes to the more modern brand of Japanese insanity; the 'Machine Girl,' 'Yakuza Weapon' and 'Robo-Geisha' style of insensibility full of obvious slapstick and oddball humour, which you'll either love or hate. It isn't until the second half of the film – or perhaps it would be more apt to call this the 'second film' – that the Godzilla parody gets under way, complete with super-lasers and the crackpot military cocking their heads back and laughing in the control room, plotting and scheming whilst the monster gets to business with wanton destruction. The fact that there are two sides will automatically make this a hard sell, the second half perhaps hitting it's mark more effectively due to the serious nature of the originals (albeit that's not how they're viewed now), but ultimately requiring prerequisite knowledge of two undeniably linked styles separated by time.

Usually when faced with a budget directors have to be a little clever; they use darkness and the shadows to disguise sub-par work, they leave as much as possible to the audience's imagination, using the power of suggestion to get into the audiences mind. Consider that at one point our Kappa and his monstrous foe start playing a game of volleyball; that the vehicles used are little more than remote controlled children's toys and you'll note that this director doesn't exactly follow this line of thought. Neither does he seem to like the idea of CGI, using rubber suits in a perfect homage to the flicks of the 70s – if it wasn't around 40 years ago, it won't be in this film. This is a flick that has so far been very poorly received and this seems to be on the fault of the audience; this isn't just a parody of the classics but destined to be a cult classic in its own right. It's cheap, nonsensical, batshit insane, and this is precisely why you should love it. Bring on the Blu-Ray!

Originally published for http://liferthemoviecorner.blogspot.com/

Note: Usually I don't post my work here, preferring the blog format, but since there seems to be a lack of a decent review here I thought I'd help fill the void. A lot have commented that this is a bad film. It is. It's dreadful, and intentionally so, and that's what makes it amusing. Many will hate it, but if you're a fan of B-Movies "so bad they're good" then this is an absolute must.

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.

I had at least expected the movie to at least have some sense of entertainment value, after all it does focus on one of the more famous of Japanese creatures in mythology.

Or at least, one would think that. But this movie quickly lost track of what it started out as and went into a full-blown "Godzilla" rip-off.

Nothing in the movie made sense, and I hope that the movie was meant to be a spoof, because everything in the movie was just fundamentally bad. From the creature costume, which clearly was just a badly made suit, to the fake model tanks, buildings and airplanes. And the airplanes and helicopters were held up with clearly visibly strings. And the big monster was also just a man in a horribly fake costume.

The special effects were as bad as the actual storyline, and it just quickly became painful to witness on the screen.

I gave up 20 minutes before the movie ended. I just couldn't suffer through a single minute more of the ordeal that is "Death Kappa".

Definitely a B-Movie, if you couldn't for some reason already tell. It's the story of a Kappa who finds peace and causes some hell along the way. About half way through it shifts gears and becomes a Kaiju movie and and steps up the action and comedy as everyone getting killed screams for their mommies, lol.

If you like low budget films or monster movies try this for a matinee on a slow day and have some fun.