For the uninitiated, at one time Japanese cinema was one of the most interesting ones in the world. It was innovative, adventurous and often quite ludicrous, but a lot of fantastic films came out as we were growing up that forged the way we think about film, and the way we envision them, showing us there’s more ways than one to tell stories.
There was of course Shinya Tsukamoto, who directed Tetsuo and its sequel, films so influential that Tarantino often expressed the idea of helming a third film. We can also cite Kinji Fukasaku who directed some beautiful gangster flicks in the 70’s and of course the pinnacle of crazy Japanese cinema: Battle Royale. A list of Japanese films wouldn’t be complete without talking about Takeshi Kitano (great actor/director) but a personal favourite of ours is Takashi Miike’s Audition, possibly one of the scariest movies ever made, a twisted love story that will haunt you for days on end.
Today, the majority of the great films coming from the far East are Korean, and Japan is now mostly limited to small scale dramas, low budget splatter films and the inevitable ghost movies. Even though The Ring was intitially already a remake of the Japanese film Ringu for some reason a reboot of The Ring is coming out in the US soon…
So, behold, because the trailer for Kodoku: Meatball Machine will absolutely tear to shreds any hopes you still had for Japanese cinema. Watching this trailer, it’s actually hard to believe this is a real film. There’s eccentric, and then there’s batshit crazy, and Kodoku: Meatball Machine definitely belongs to the second category. There’s blood everywhere, boobs, man/robot hybrids and so much more we just can’t comprehend. Trying to figure out what’s happening isn’t really point though, as it seems like it might be more of sensory experience, potentially leading up to an epileptic fit.
No actually synopsis is available yet but let’s just assume we probably won’t understand much, the entire marketing campaign revolves around the blood and the guts galore. We forgot to mention, there’s also a woman shooting bullets out of her breasts, fembot style. Directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura, the man behind Tokyo Gore Police (also on the insane side), the film is apparently an unofficial sequel to 2005’s Meatball Machine (don’t worry, we haven’t seen it either).
Now, we know you’re intrigued, even if there’s a lot of chances you probably won’t enjoy the film, at least you can marvel at a potential future classic of the j-splatter genre. Needless to say there is no release date for this film in the US yet, but you may be able to catch it as a midnight screening at a festival near your home sometime in 2017.
Watch the Kodoku: Meatball Machine trailer here at your own peril.
