Deadball

Sometimes it's nice when a film informs us straightaway what it's going to be. The opening scene is so cartoonish, with deliberately low-grade special effects, that at first blush it makes 'Kung fu hustle' look like 'The godfather.' Forevermore thereafter it remains unabashedly outrageous and over the top, including wildly forthright and overcooked dialogue, narrative and scene writing, and plot development; gleefully exaggerated characterizations, commonly realized through unfettered animated acting; kooky costume design, hair, and makeup; cheesy music; and more. Splatter comedy, puerile teen comedy, sports comedy, absurdism, flavors of outright "torture porn," intimations of a backwards vigilante superhero origin story, touches of action-comedy spoof, childishness recalling Ernest P. Worrell: all this and more, with production values that at best most closely resemble The Asylum, and direction, storytelling, and acting pulled directly from a twelve-year old's immature and undeveloped imagination. I'llsay this for 'Deadball,' it knows exactly what it is and is fully committed as it leans into the ridiculousness.

When I say "cartoonish," and when I say "production values that at best most closely resemble The Asylum," I surely mean it. There wasn't even the slightest effort to control impulses here; writer Tokaji Keita, director Yamaguchi Yudai, and producers Chiba Yoshinori and Torishawa Shin just let their imaginations run loose, and included anything and everything they conjured. Narrative cohesion and judicious, sensible storytelling is way beside the point; this movie joyfully tosses everything including the kitchen sink, no matter how far-fetched, garish, or preposterous, and does the bare minimum necessary to write a story around all such ideas. Just as much to the point, there wasn't the slightest effort of quality control; The Asylum is perhaps too generous a point of reference, for everything on hand, and not least the "special effects," seem like they were ripped from the most purposefully inorganic, inauthentic, artificial bluster possible. Think of "live-action" fare on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block - the type of fare where part of the joke is in making everything look and sound as fake and awful as could be done. 'Deadball' is the simple-minded, unsophisticated entertainment of Nickelodeon that's built for elementary school kids, and layered with the sensibilities of adults who are thirty going on thirteen, only summoned out of Japan instead of the United States.

Provided you're receptive to the consciously gauche insipidness, then recognizing that everything herein is purely intentional, I can't say it's not suitably well done on its chosen level. Some little odds and ends are unexpectedly sharp, like the lighting, or the practical effects; when we get to the point just before the halfway mark when the baseball team of "Saint Black Dahlia High School" is introduced, it's obvious that an unexpected level of care was put into the moment. To that same point, like other select examples in cinema, television, or even the advertising world, there's unbound potential in the concept of an ordinary sport taken to gnarly extremes borne of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. I'll even say that this "game" in the central portion between St. Black Dahlia and the "Pterodactyl Gauntlets" is fairly clever overall, and definitely a top highlight of the whole. The cast fully embrace the vacuousness, and in the very least I can't help but admire their gusto.with Sakaguchi Tak, Hoshino Mari, and the Black Dahlias all standing out a little more than others. The feature even earned some laughs!

On the other hand, 'Deadball' is very intent on practicing the male gaze, especially with regards to St. Black Dahlia High. The shtick wears thin very quickly, tiresomely relying on abject shock value, unyielding ludicrousness, and infantile boorishness - with a dire paucity of any of the wit necessary for any of it to be funny, or more than baseline amusing. And while I'm quite serious when I say that the picture earned some laughs, it was all too easy to count them: a total of only three over 99 minutes. It was, not too surprisingly, the most unembellished, low-key bits, a humble upending of expectations contrasting heavily with the predominant bloody, gory bombast, that actually evoked the intended reaction. The harder this tries, the less engaging it becomes; the amount of fun we can genuinely have here is significantly smaller than we may inclined to believe based on the far-out premise. Awkwardly, in the last twenty minutes or so it's readily evident that Tokaji really was aiming for more complete, considered narrative writing as the tone shifts, but it seems this is not within the man's skill set, for it is very plainly where the title is weakest. Just as much to the point, by that time we've been so exhausted by what 'Deadball' has otherwise had to offer that we just can't care about the home stretch. Factor in a perfectly unnecessary, persistent strain of homophobia on top of everything else, and my already middling favor falls far further.

There were good ideas here. For the most part they were abused or misused, and amount to far too little when stood next to the overbearing choices that mostly define the film. Where it does something well, I wish it did more of these things so I could like it more; for what it does poorly, falling well short of its potential, it's more likely that I'm being too kind in my assessment. I don't entirely hate this, yet the value that it provides is just too little, and our time is probably just better spent somewhere else in the first place. I guess there are worse flicks you could watch, but the fact of the matter is that there's no compelling reason to look for 'Deadball' in the first place. Check it out if you like, and have a good time; I have better stuff to do, and I won't be revisiting this.

A young man, Jubeh Yakyu, swears off baseball after his literally blazing fastball offs his old man. Later, as a young adult with the fashion sense of a biker and a Sergio Leone western, he is arrested for a 2 week spree of 54 crimes ("inluding dropping televisions on people"). With a promise of freedom, the governor sends him to "Pteradactyl Hall", a juvenile detention center run by a headmistress called Ishihara who has a thing for the Nazi period in her dress and manner. She is also the chairperson for a baseball tournament called "Juvie League". The governor suspects she's up to something and he wants Jubeh to find out what.

This movie is an over-the-top, cartoonish, scattershot of the absurd, ridiculous, and the stupid. This means that if one of them doesn't make you grin or laugh outright there's another not far behind that will probably do the job. Jubeh arrives at Pterdactyl Hall and later finds out that is brother, Mushashi, was there earlier and died. Ishihara, with some kind of contraption strapped to her to generate tears, gives him some sob story and tells him that his brother would want him to play baseball. Jubeh decides that he will play again. His team, the Pterdactyl Gauntlets, will play St. Black Dahlia High, an all girl team (Woof!). But it is not the game he and his teammates imagined. This movie is obviously silly, but "good" silly. Enjoy! Love, Boloxxxi.

This Sushi Typhoon movie has everything you'd expect, hyper violence, over the top gore and zany Japanese antics.

It tells the story of a teenager with a killer pitch, he's vowed never to play baseball again after accidentally killing his father (As you do). Now he's in prison, will he be able to stick to his vow?

As you can imagine the plot is pretty irrelevant, the entire 100 minutes are simply violent and chaotic. Bouncing from one over the top kill to the next and that can only take a movie so far.

If you want an actual "Movie" in the traditional sense you'll likely not enjoy it. It's silly gory fun and that's all.

There is enjoyment to be had, but it's very niche.

The Good:

Some laughs to be had

A few great kills

The Bad:

Wafer thin plot

Most of the comedy falls flat

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Squeaky toys are highly desirable in prison

I don't know what those jeans of his were, but I want some!

Baldness is a disability, which I also have! Am I entitled to anything?

Baseball is a combat technique

This is one of my hardest reviews so far in a way this movie is cool or the ideas are cool but everything is done bad. I like these kind of hilarious Asian movies that does everything crazy in them but this one failed in many ways. It is about a guy who have killed with his baseball killing move and will not do this move ever again. He is sent to prison for his actions and is forced to play on a baseball team of inmates. They have to play against another prison team of all female inmates. It is a game of bloody death. I would not call this a horror movie actually. It is just a comedy gore fest.

I never like CGI in modern movies it's becoming very bad cinema for in my opinion but on these kind of Asian movies it is just cool sometimes. In this movie it did not work at all. It is a shame they did not focus more on the other inmates personalities because that would have made this movie very cool. They have hilarious personalities but you never get to know any of them. The acting is over the top bad but I don't think anyone who ever want to watch this and hoping for good acting or good story.

As I said I like these kind of movies from Asia with gore and liters of blood in them but usually they are interesting to watch but this did nothing to get me interested or having much fun. Some scenes are very funny in a silly way though. Like one with a guy getting the baseball in his eye and it is stuck there for the rest of the movie. If this is the first movie you want to see from this kind of genre stay away I would recommend many others to begin with. Like Tokyo gore police (2008) starring the girl from Audition, Or maybe it is best to start with the legendary Battle Royal movie. This movie is in my opinion not worth watching but I guess if you seek these kind of movies like me I watch everything that looks interesting and a bit out of the normal cinema joy, you may like this one.

You don't need to be a pro with Japanese humor to appreciate this film. However Deadball is really one of those films that is not for everyone. If you enjoy extreme comedy films like Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie then this one is up your alley.

I saw a Japanese review of this movie on Youtube just to gather some more info and apparently this film is the 4th one of the Typhoon Festival series of splatter films for the world market. Yes this is a comedy movie with splatter mixed together, it's not meant to be taken seriously in anyway.

The baseball aspect is quite small. Far less baseball compared to the Major League films. And the appeal of this film is that the story doesn't really make sense, it's a baseball film where they don't really play baseball, but instead they kill each other.

Probably the best part of this film occurs after viewing, when your trying to tell your friend all about the insanity that is this film!

Dead Ball is the sequel to Battlefield Baseball. However if you jump right in with Dead Ball you will be fine, you won't be lost. Between the two I recommend Dead Ball over Battlefield Baseball because the budget is bigger.