Director: Sion Sono
Year: 2021
Country: USA/Japan
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After she disappears into the countryside, a bank robber caught in a border town of a lawless frontier is tasked with retrieving her by the nf the week from a reclusive band of mutants, only to discover a deadly force preying upon them and tries to save the group before his mission runs out.
Review:
While a disappointment, this one does have some enjoyable aspects. Among the bright spots here is the rather enjoyable and over-the-top sense of theatrics found in the rituals on display. Most of this comes from the utterly freaky and bizarre way the town lives, dressing like an apocalyptic band of road warriors, engaging in elaborately choreographed rituals, and outfitting captives in plastic pieces resembling disjointed mannequins while living in the squalor of an abandoned factory while spouting off ramblings of some strange curse involving an accident with nuclear waste creates an intriguing initial premise to work off. As well, when it offers up some action in a sword-fight of hand-to-hand encounter the gore here isn’t too bad, but overall these are about all the film has going for it.
There are some issues to be had with this one. The main drawback featured here is that, since so much of this is revealed so late into the running time, far too much of the film makes no sense. The band of outlaws living in the abandoned town with their rules and rituals creates a simplistic enough setup but there’s nothing about how they tie into the group living in the town under the thumb of the maniacal governor who is constantly barking bizarre orders and commands to the obedient women at his feet or his servants. Even less sense is how the three separate factions are even connected with vague ramblings and nonsensical preachifying making use of just about everything taking place here in an attempt to bring these elements together which fails to do so.
The other factor on display here is that there’s so little action here it becomes dull and boring after a while. So little of this one features anything remotely resembling what could’ve been a fun, wild post-apocalyptic style feature involving the fight between a peace-seeking tribe of people stuck in the desert under siege by a roving band of mutated creatures prowling the desert. This one spends so much of its running time on other factors that there’s very little interesting here that by the time it finally gets to the big battle at the end to take down the one in charge it’s not interesting anymore and just comes off as a violent battle because that’s the way the story has to end rather than tying itself together. All told, these features manage to bring the film down significantly from what it could’ve been.
Overview: */5
A general disappointment for most involved which is a bit of a shame considering the talent collected, there’s very little of interest here and most of it’s wasted anyways making this one highly underwhelming. Really only see this one if you’re a completist for the creative crew, but most others out there should have no real reason to give this one a shot at all.
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