Fate causes the paths of a guerrilla film crew and two feuding Yakuza clans to clash for the second time in ten years in this outlandish comedy from 'Suicide Club' director Sion Sono. The movie initially feels like a twisted version of 'Bowfinger' or 'Cecil B. DeMented' as the young guerrilla filmmakers heartlessly intrude on the Yakuza madness to get money shots. In between the violence, there are also some moments of macabre beauty too, such as a young girl in a white dress sliding through a sea of blood, and things get more complex as the story progresses and jumps to the present. Deliciously weird and wacky as the film is, it takes a long time for the paths of the protagonists to cross once again, and the film feels way too long. It is, however, the midsection that needs trimming (especially a romance) as the carnage-heavy finale is glorious with the guerrillas' insensitivity to all the bloodshed at peak. The unemotional way in which they film all the action is uncanny; one gets a sense that they have completely lost all sense of distinction between reality and movie-making. The film has some solid performances too, particularly from Jun Kunimura as a much-feared Yakuza boss whose daughter used to be in toothpaste commercials, and Shinichi Tsutsumi as the other Yakuza boss who became fixated on Kunimura's little girl at an age that many would consider creepy. Fumi Nikaidou (as the adult daughter) also keeps singing her toothpaste jingle. It is that kind of delirious, unconventional comedy if one is in the mood for something decidedly different.

Viewed on DVD. Cult Director Shion Sono delivers a film that has to be seen to be believed (or not believed)! The plot involves a "gorilla film" group of dedicated losers (who has spent the past 10 years aggressively going nowhere) unexpectedly given the chance to film a battle-to-the-death between two mob gangs (and the unexpected bloody wipe out of the victors--as well as surviving members of the film crew except for the gorilla film director--by a police SWAT group). Or maybe all this never really happened except in the imagination of the gorilla film director. (Obvious clues are there to ponder.) Starting with an overly embellished English translation of its title, the movie is way, way over the top in all contemporary cinematic categories (and then some): creativity; humor; Japanese cuteness; melodrama; violence; acting (there are well over 30 speaking parts plus one reluctant cat); CGI gore; music; mobile (hand-held) cinematography; editing; break-away sets; etc. (The film's complexity is such that the viewer can not help but wonder how Sono was able to pull together and transform the massive amount of raw material he must have started with into this polished product.) Although the movie is fairly derivative, Sono seems to be trying to one-up himself (not others) in scene after scene. And he is mostly successful. Actors appear to have been frequently unleashed by the Director so as to improvise their parts and seriously caricature their roles. This tactic usually has a galvanizing impact on the viewer (especially in the final third of the film). The movie, though, is too long with many repetitive scenes in the mob battle. Surround sound is hit/miss erratic. Subtitles are close enough, but fail to translate the names of the film's principals during the opening (or closing) credits! An obvious candidate for eternal cult-crowd homage. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.

This was a movie made with great love for cinema. If you are a true lover of film you'll greatly enjoy this film. The film has many references, parodies and praise for other films you'll recognise which adds to the fun. The music is excellent, a lot of it original, some you'll recognise...If you liked Kill Bill, your sure to like this, where as Kill Bill was like a love letter to Japanese cinema and culture coming from Tarantino, this is one coming right out of Japan....The main appeal for this film is that it is lots of fun and you'll get the tone of the film very early on, which is the crazy off the wall humour which Japan specialises in. Its gloriously over the top, gory and funny and I was smiling the whole way through! Check it out!

Sono seems to be the only film maker left who I feel I can always depend on to make a great movie. I was a little worried in the beginning that he was just trying to make a stupid Hollywood-type comedy, but it turned out there was a good reason for this. In the extra features on the DVD, he gives a press conference with a friend of his, the editor of a Japanese film magazine that specializes in films like Sono makes. It turned out that there actually was a Film Club called "The F-ck Bombs", and it was started by Sono and his friend. Many of the scenes in the beginning when they were chased by kids in the park and called idiots, actually happened to Sono when he was first starting to make films, only Sono was thirty years old when that happened to him, and the experience was extremely traumatic for him. Sono started out as a poet, and only started making films when he was much older. This movie is about him reliving that time in his life, and also a homage to Bruce Lee films. It has nothing to do with inferior film makers like Tarantino. The only other director who constantly turns out good films like Sono is Todd Solondz, IMHO.