Tokyo Zombie (2009)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

A great fun watch. Two workers who prefer to spend their time training in jujitsu accidentally kill their boss and bury him on Black Fuji, an enormous pile of rubbish. There are some great scenes on Black Fuji with the young couple burying the mother of the boy while she continues to call the girlfriend a tart. When the girlfriend soccer kicks her head off the mother still yells abuse. This sets the tone for the whole movie. Our unlikely heroes are afro-ed and bald and spend a lot of time wrestling with each other. When the zombies attack the main motto is "head north to Russia and become a man". American is dissed and maybe that's why Americans haven't taken to this excellent cult manga film. It's not overly violent and has lots of humour.

This movie is one of those rare gems you come across. It is an excellent example of great, odd films you can find from Japan. First of all, this movie is funny. Secondly, it has zombies, and Tadanobu Asano, probably one of Japans finest actors. Even though this is a zombie movie, it feels like a fresh take on an old idea. Anyone who is a fan of Tokyo shock, or weird Asian films will love it. Asano shines as a jujitsu training, zombie killing, laugh factory. Sho Aikawa plays his mentor, and provides plenty of comic relief. The female lead also lends a good deal of humorous dialog and action. Something for everyone. great movie!!!

Two Japanese friends accidentally kill their boss and dump his remains in Black Fuji, a mountain/landfill hybrid. This leads to poor results when the chemicals of the landfill mix with the corpse (and many other corpses) to give rise to a zombie infestation in Tokyo.This is a pretty bizarre film. Two men fight zombies with jujitsu. Not swords, not guns, but face-smashing jujitsu. One of them has a 'fro haircut while the other is bald. It's just an odd pairing. The film has been called the Japanese "Shaun of the Dead". I see it. I think it's a stretch, but I see it. Comparisons to other recent Japanese films, such as "Machine Girl", seem more appropriate -- there's a similar style of dark humor and violence coupled with cheesy CGI.There's also an attempt to connect this to "Ichi the Killer". Don't be fooled by that. "Ichi", along with essentially all the work of Miike, is better than this film. "Q", "Audition", and others just put "Tokyo Zombie" to shame. Perhaps it has the same writer, but the fact this film was based off a manga is evident and infuses a humor that doesn't play as well in live action.This film's biggest flaw is a lack of zombies. Sure, we have plenty of zombies, but there still seems to be a shortage -- there are periods of up to ten minutes without zombie action. These scenes are often filled with sentimental blather. Maybe in the original language this comes off better, but I had little interest in hearing people talk sentimentally to each other.Typically I watch films while drinking, but due to a cold I was not drinking during this one. That is unfortunate. While this movie was above average, it would have been even better with alcohol. The humor is lame at some points, and is either a cultural thing or just plain dumb. I'm uncertain. But all I know is that parts that were clearly meant to be funny fell flat for me.If you like "Machine Girl", I'd say give this one a chance. Perhaps even if you liked "Shaun of the Dead", though the connection is slight. A double feature with this film and a stronger Japanese film, such as "Battle Royale", would make for a good evening. Show this one first, of course. It's decent but by no means a headliner.

From the first minute to the end of the credits, this movie is a zombie movie lover's fantasy. Imagine crossing Shaun of the Dead and Kung Fu Hustle and you'll have a small idea of what kind of movie you're in for when you watch Tokyo Zombie.I scour the world of film to find movies that stand out to me as being worthy of owning. I'm very picky when it comes to movies, and I've seen many films that fall into the "zombie" category which end up being nothing short of wasted time in my life once I reach the ending. I am a fan of Shaun of the Dead simply because it not only is a comedy, but it mocks the entire genre of horror movies and zombie flicks. Tokyo Zombie is much the same in the way that you try to open your mind to it and wonder how long it will be before you can accept it's another zombie movie, before you realize that you're laughing hysterically aloud at flying heads and spurting blood.Don't think that you've EVER seen effects like these before. The movie opens to two men practicing Ju-Jitsu, one of them, Micchan (whom believes he has cancer after he forces his doctor to tell him that's what it is after the doc insists it's just a stomach ulcer) and he dedicates his life to helping his friend, Fujio, learn Ju-Jitsu, so once zombies start sprouting from the graves, why not practice on them?The two men accidentally kill their boss, Ujimoto, and decide to bury his body on Black Fuji, a big mountain of ash which there are apparently hundreds of people burying things from satellite dishes to refrigerators to, in a funny scene, the mother of a wimp-like guy who's up to her head and yelling at the young guy's girl who is threatening him with loss of sex if he doesn't bury his mom, but well she's up to her head in the ash and the girl gets tired of hearing this woman's rantings so she punts the woman's head and it flies off the mountain at about 50 miles per hour screaming at her son "Darrrliiinnnnnggggggg!!!!" in Japanese as it flies off to the horizon. I pretty much lost it at that point, laughing hysterically at the comedy of it all. Usually in a movie like this you'll get a 5-10 min break before there's more humor, but no, they keep it going with a school teacher burying the body of one of his male students who he had killed while apparently spanking in school... Well, he was also the teacher of Fujio, and he'd spanked him quite a bit before in the past so Fujio goes down to him and beats the crap out of him with a shovel, and it's pretty funny how he does it. The teacher, you'd think, dies then, but no he gets up a few minutes later to find his pants missing, but is happy to see a young woman come out of the ground who's eyeing his exposed penis with a hungry smile, so he decides to let her enjoy it, and she does, with zombie-like abandon... Immediately following this, the two Ju-Jitsu buddies drive over the wandering body of the boy who's mother's head was booted off into the sunset because they're arguing as to whether or not the teacher had his way with Fujio in the past or not.All of this happens within the first 15 minutes of the movie, well by 14 minutes and 11 seconds to be exact. The movie's script is well done, the acting is quite nice, the graphics and especially the zombies are very well done. I, personally, will end up recommending this movie to many of my friends, and I'm sure that it will become one of my new favorites in not only Asian cinema, but also in the realm of true horror-comedy.If you have the chance to see this movie, don't pass on it, I'm sure you'll enjoy watching it, none of the scenes are over-the-top, and none of the acting seems forced. It's a well-balanced flick which I will keep in my mind's database of A+ movies and I'm sure I'll reference it whenever I try to explain how some Asian movies are well worth watching.I hope this review and my comments have helped you make your decision about this movie.