This movie follows two blue-collar workers who spend their break times practicing ju-jitsu, and when the zombie apocalypse occurs, they use all their training to stay alive. It seems that a mountain comprised of trash, chemicals and buried bodies has caused the dead to rise again, and while the two main characters, Fujio (Tadanobu Asano) and Mitsuo (Show Aikawa), start doing what they can to survive, they decide to head out of the major populated cities in hopes of not getting bitten. Along the way, they pick up a female companion in Yoko (Erika Okuda). At first, the film feels like a pretty standard comedy zombie film, almost a Shaun of the Dead in Japan. But around the middle of the movie, it takes on a very different shape as we skip several years into the future where a city is built in the middle of the infected area and citizens have a new spectator sport, Zombie Wrestling. In this sport, a zombie is pitted against a normal human. If the human wins enough matches to become popular, then he becomes a citizen and lives out a carefree life.
While the first half of the movie had a few really odd aspects to it, the least of which were the constant pedophilia references, it was pretty bearable. But when we jump to the zombie fighting period of the movie, it not only jumps the shark (is it possible for a movie to do that?), but does a couple of flips while doing so. In the end, Tokyo Zombie will throw in a few more perverted sexual topics and just leave you wondering what it was you were watching. But at least the film's dubbing isn't too bad and there was dubbing. While I have no problem watching a movie with subtitles, dubbing is always a personal preference. The film does offer the option to leave on the Japanese soundtrack and turn on English subtitles for those purists out there, but that just isn't my bag.
As for special features, there is a bit of variety to go along with Tokyo Zombie. You will have at your disposal everything from actor interviews and Q&A sessions to a lengthy making-of featurette that talks about the manga it was inspired by.
Quite frankly, it's hard to recommend Tokyo Zombie. Maybe I just don't get the culture's movie style, but I felt the whole thing was just downright odd and not really enjoyable. Only the most avid Japanese culture fans should give this film a try, and unless you already know you like their live-action films, you should pretty much avoid Tokyo Zombie.
