Director: Yûki Kumagai
Year: 2018
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Tôkyô ribingu deddo aidoru
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
After getting bitten after a performance, a teen idol singer begins racing against the clock before she transforms into a zombie with a private detective to find a fabled cure for her condition, only to find a massive conspiracy preventing her from doing so and prevents her chances of being cured.
Review:
Overall, there's a lot to like with the film. One of the stronger features here is a rather offbeat and goofy storyline that offers up some interesting twists and enhancements to a typical zombie film. Rather than provide the impetus for the launch of a zombie virus around the city, the film instead explores the futility of living life on borrowed time. By being bitten at the very beginning and aware of the guidelines for turning into a zombie, she goes from a self-centered, selfish individual who thinks the whole world owes her for her career as a teen idol to becoming aware of what her condition will ultimately bring. Not only will she leave behind the group who are still human, but the other relationships she's damaged by her attitude in the past that will be changed once the deadline hits. This causes a fine change of character that carries the majority of the film into the race to uncover the conspiracy holding back a cure for the zombie virus.
Also rather enjoyable is the incredibly fun and over-the-top finale. Having been built up a wholly intriguing storyline throughout the beginning of the film featuring the need to locate and rescue the one individual that can provide a cure while trying to avoid the zombie hunters, the final half turns into a wholly respectable series of confrontations with the zombies. After infiltrating the compound, the series of zombies swarming through the hallways after them leads to several big battles. The group takes on the main swarm and manage to hold off the creature rather nicely before turning to individual combat tactics. Engaging solo in a spirited sword-fight and then a big gun-battle with selected zombies has plenty of fun within here as the gory action and frenzied movements really bring out the kind of crazy features these genre films typically provide. Complete with all the fine bloodshed and crazy stunts that usually occur in these types of genre efforts, this section of the film really scores nicely with a lot to like about it.
Still, this one does have a few problems. The main issue to be had here is the troublesome mid-section of the film that changes up the pacing considerably. Focusing on the two going through the investigation into the cause of the zombie outbreak and the history of its controversial cure dominate a section that ends up slowing down the film. Going through old articles and hearsay about what happened years ago or doing in-person questioning about the incidents really aren't that interesting, and while these scenes help to flesh out her redemption storyline they still drop the pacing down. As well, that also manages the strange facet of keeping the action down to really brief spurts until the finale so that the zombies barely arrive in the film. The few battles here are so short as to really unimpressive as action pieces, and with the bland pacing here there's not a whole lot of action here anyway. As well as the usually typical low-budget quality CGI work for the blood splatter and gore, these here are the main issues present.
Overview: ***/5
With some enjoyable elements about it but some big problems with the pacing and lack of zombie action, this one emerges as a solid enough take on the Japanese zombie film. Give this a shot if you're into this type of Japanese effort or fans of the idol groups present, while those unwilling to go into the craziness present in this kind of film should heed caution.
This review was originally published on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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