Dead Sushi, 2012.
Directed by Noboru Iguchi.
Starring Rina Takeda, Kentarô Shimazu, Takamasa Suga and Takashi Nishina.
SYNOPSIS:
When Keiko is disowned by her sushi chef father, she finds work in a resort hotel catering to the up-market business sector. But when a party from a nearby pharmaceuticals research facility check in, little do they know a former crazed employee is about to take his revenge. For he infects the fish being prepared for a lavish meal and Keiko and the sexy staff must fight off an onslaught of razor-toothed sushi, demented squid and a California roll battleship.
I was a bit wary about watching this. The synopsis alone was enough to make me wonder what the heck I should expect and after viewing I was quite right on being a bit hesitant as this film is barking. I was joined by my eldest who had never watched a Japanese film before and asked if she could join me, asking also, “What is a comedy horror?” I explained that Shaun of the Dead is a comedy horror and I think at that point I had set the bar far too high for what we then watched.
We follow Keiko as she leaves her sushi chef / never happy father and enters the big wide world which in this case is a dingy hotel in desperate need of a customer to bring in a bit of cash. The hotel is run by a flustered manager and his adulterous wife who is currently having it away with the hotel’s sushi chef; in the background is a laughing caretaker (nee previous sushi chef, who accidentally stabbed his wife to death).
Keiko is teased, pushed, tripped and fondled until she finally freaks out at the in-house sushi chef and the current party of business guests for their lack of respect towards the art of sushi. It is at this point a local tramp appears who happens to be a previous partner from the party of guests and who was right royally dumped from them. He returns to wreak revenge on his former employers by reanimating a dead squid which in turn reanimates the sushi which then goes on a murderous rampage throughout the hotel, killing of its guests in a number of disgustingly gory ways.
I understand that this film should be watched with your tongue so far into your cheek that it begins to hurt; I really do understand that and for the first thirty minutes or so I was happily getting into the spirit of this utterly barking film with flying killer squids, Kung-Fu sushi and other such oddities, but after the thirty minutes had passed I started to “Ummm?” and “Yeahh?” I was also becoming more aware of the timer on my player. The humour is stretched out so thin it begins to tear becoming rather boring and nonsensical. Granted the idea of reanimated sushi on the whole doesn’t make much sense but due to the humour level dropping by the minute you begin to do a lot of inner huffing and a unwilling to forgive or accept the silliness on the screen, all the while waiting for the film to finally come to its conclusion.
If we had been given this as a 45 minute short it probably would have been fantastically funny and spoken of amongst friends, but it isn’t. The worst thing about it was when it finished my daughter said, “Well that’s me not watching anymore Japanese films again!” I had to quickly rattle off a number of Japanese classics hoping to let her know Dead Sushi isn’t the be all and end all of Japanese cinema.
Flickering Myth Rating: Film ★ / Movie ★ ★
Villordsutch is married with kids and pets. He looks like a tubby Viking and enjoys science fiction. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published September 30, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
