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Kichiku
Dai Enkai
(Banquet Of The Beasts)
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6
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10 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett
SNEAK PREVIEW
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DVD Release Date: Sept.
28, 2004 |
Kichiku
Dai Enkai
(Banquet of the Beasts) is a Japanese student
film that goes a long way toward proving that
if you work hard enough and have talent, a small
budget means nothing. That's a refreshing thing
to be reminded of in this CGI-happy age. Filmed
for the equivalent of $30,000 over a one year
period ending in 1997, it has now turned up in
a two-disc special edition on NTSC DVD by those
genre-friendly folks at Artsmagic. You may groan
that there are better films given less special
attention, but I'm for any kind of lavish extras
I can get. It's a great time we live in when a
movie this nasty and little-known can be treated
like Citizen Kane.
Kichiku
relates the tale of a group of college age political
activists in the early 1970s who are waiting for
their leader Aizawa to be released from jail.
The movie never makes it very clear but he seems
to be serving a sentence for participating in
violent protests. While in prison he has recruited
Fujiwara (Kentaro Ogiso) into the group; Aizawa
tells him to look after them until he gets out.
Aizawa's girlfriend Masami (Sumiko Mikami) has
been running the group in his absence but her
methods are a little odd. She uses her sexuality
to control the men and seems just a little too
eager to retain her top spot. Her questionable
orders include a smash and grab robbery of a post
office as she behaves more and more unbalanced.
Yamane (Tomohiro Zaizen) is one group member who
thinks she's going in the wrong direction and
leaves them in a rage, while sensitive folk musician
Kumatani (Shigeru Bokuda) is bothered as well,
but stays. The rest of the group seems to just
fall in line and when Masami obtains several deadly
weapons for their next action, they not only accept
this but revel in it. Then they learn that Aizawa
has killed himself in prison. The last vestiges
of sanity evaporate. Yamane shows up trying to
recruit Kumatani into a new activist group and
when Masami discovers this she loses the little
grip on reality she has, diving straight into
madness. The others in the group grab Yamane and
Kumatani and drive them out into the country with
the intention of killing them both. This is where
the film takes a truly nasty turn into Last
House On The Left territory and never looks
back. After tying the two men to trees and beating
the hell out of them, Masami finally kills one
of them —
suddenly all bets are off on who will survive.
While Fujiwara and one other group member are
completely loyal to their insane female leader,
two others become more and more troubled so that
their allegiances get called into question.
Shotguns, knives, razor blades
and a samurai sword all get screen time in the
last bloody hour of Kichiku
and their use is very unnerving. The film sports
some extremely gory and mostly convincing effects
that are well staged and realistically shot. Kichiku
comes close to recreating the oppressive mood
of dread that Last House
did so effectively. The slow build of encroaching
madness is well handled and actress Sumiko Mikami
is fantastic at swinging violently from sex-crazed
object of lust to cruel wild woman intent on murder.
She's the kind of woman men have always been warned
about and her insanity is nearly a tangible thing.
The movie is surprisingly well made and I would
never have guessed at its low budget. The acting
is solid, the cinematography good, the story is
well told with an almost classical tragedy structure.
Of course, this would be fine for any audience
except that the last act is so grotesquely violent
that only gore fans are likely to really embrace
the film. But even gorehounds aren't likely to
love this movie as they do the Friday
The 13th films or their legion of clones.
This movie has much more in common with such truly
unnerving fare as Last House,
The Hills Have Eyes
and Straw Dogs and
therefore doesn't lend itself to the cheering-on
of the carnage onscreen. There's absolutely no
way to have 'fun' watching Kichiku
and while that will limit its audience, I find
it pretty impressive. Maintaining the strained
mood generated here shows real skill. I hope the
filmmakers are able to do more horror films in
the future.
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Artsmagic
has done a great job with this film on DVD. They've
issued it as a two-disc special edition with the
film on Disc 1 and a host of extras on Disc 2.
The film is presented in an unmatted, fullframe
transfer that, outside of some very minor print
damage, looks very good. The soundtrack is only
presented in the original Japanese and has been
mastered in 5.1 Dolby with optional (white-lettered)
English subtitles. The subs contain no syntax
or spelling mistakes that I could spot. Disc 2
opens with a 30-minute Making of Kichiku
that consists of behind the scene video footage
filmed during the goriest scenes near the end
of the production. This was nice to see, especially
the humorous interactions of the actors when confronted
by the various mutilated, bloody body parts of
their characters. Second is an 8-minute bit called
Reaction To Kichiku which is just some
footage from a film festival interspersed with
some interview snippets of the director and producer.
Next up is a series of interviews, the real meat
of the extras.
First of these is a 20-minute
introduction to the film by Asian film expert
(and Artsmagic's in-house commentator) Tom Mes.
This is a very informative talk that puts the
film into both historical and cinematic perspective
as well as touching on some fascinating tangential
subjects. Next are separate interviews with writer/director/editor
Kazuyoshi Kumakiri and cameraman Kiyoaki Hashimoto.
The young director is enthusiastic and full of
information even though he seems to have a head
cold. His tales of moviemaking mistakes and the
constant search for funding were funny and very
nearly a warning to new filmmakers. This makes
the second director I'm aware of who has submitted
themselves to medical experimentation to make
a movie! I was glad to learn of his two subsequent
films and was surprised to find that they are
not horror movies. (I'll be seeking out the other
Kazuyoshi Kumakiri films very soon to see what
he can accomplish with a real budget.) The interview
with the movie's cameraman is shorter, but it
becomes very obvious that he was a strong collaborator
on the project. The final interview is a 38-minute
talk with four of the male actors from the film.
This is a great piece with all of the participants
giving their backgrounds and how they choose (or
were conned!) into making Kichiku.
This is a very funny interview with all four relating
great stories about the filming. If you feel depressed
by the film this piece might be the way to decompress
afterwards. The extras also include short biographies
and filmographies of the principals as well as
the original trailer for the film.
All told, this is an excellent
DVD package for a small, violent movie that I'd
never heard of until a few weeks ago.
9/22/04
GORE
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