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Kodoku: Mitoboru Mashin
Meatball Machine Kodoku
Japan 2017
produced by Tomoharu Kusunoki, Yudai Yamaguchi, Yukihiko Yamaguchi, Toshiaki Sakamoto (executive) for Ark Entertainment, King Records, Nishimura Eizo
directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura
starring Yoji Tanaka, Yurisa, Miyuki Torii, Tomori Abe, Kensuke Ashihara, Satoshi Eishima, Goki, Yota Kawase, Riri Koda, Rima Matsuda, Masanori Mimoto, Maki Mizui, Seminosuke Murasugi, Takashi Nishina, Takumi Saito, Ririne Sasano, Eihi Shiina, Kentaro Shimazu, Ami Tomite, Miho Wakabayashi, Taro Yabe, Hiroko Yashiki
written by Sakichi Sato, Yoshihiro Nishimura, music by Takashi Nakagawa, special effects by Yoshihiro Nishimura/Nishimura Eizo, visual effects by Tsuyoshi Kazuno
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Yuri is a 50 year old debt collector who hates his job, isn't good at
it and thus constantly bullied by his boss, suffers from chest pains, and
eventually finds out he's got terminal cancer. Thinking he's got nothing
to lose, he tries to live a little - but still ends on the receiving end
most of the time. Kaoru is a lowly employee in a book store where Yuri
usually buys comedy tapes. She's the only one who actually sees something
more than a debt collector in Yuri, but he only notices her when he saves
her from an assault rather by chance (and he escapes unscathed himself
only with lots of luck). Then a big glass dome descends over the city,
right where the two of them live, and they and all those who have bullied
them are trapped inside. The dome is obviously of alien origin as alien
symbionts attach themselves to selected humans to turn them into
super-powered beings that can turn everything they think of into weapons,
and then they wreak havoc on humanity - and sometimes each other even.
Yuri is one of those selected, but because of his cancer, the alien
attached to him dies off allowing him to stay human but with all the alien
superpowers still - and now he's on a quest to save Kaoru ... but will he,
assisted by an eccentric troupe of martial arts savvy police officers, be
enough to save the girl from hordes of aliens? I don't know if
this synopsis makes perfect sense, but if not, then I've caught pretty
much the essence of Meatball Machine Kodoku, as this film is
basically mad whack, an onslaught of insane and surreal ideas and
setpieces, edited together at breakneck pace, full of hommages to both
Eastern and Western popular culture, invariably delivered in an
over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek way. On top of that, there's tons of
(practical and CGI) blood flowing, and the alien supersuits (and how they
adopt everyday items as weapons) are really far out. True, this might
not be a film for everybody, it's gory and loud and crazy - but it's a
thrill ride for those into this kind of stuff!
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