Negative Happy Chain Saw Edge

The first movie commentary I did was for Yasujirō Ozu's Tokyo Story, a slow, plodding serious art house film that explores generational relationships in 1950's era Japan. Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge is about as far from that as it gets. It's all about fun, and coming up with three reasons for it is exceptionally easy. For starters, it's called Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge. I mean, how cool is that? Moreover, it features an attractive school girl/warrior who throws daggers from a garter belt holster and fights a villain who is heralded by the snow, descends from the moon, and sports a chainsaw as his weapon of choice. Still, as cool as all that sounds, I wouldn't be surprised if this movie fell flat on it's face at the box office, as I would imagine it might have a hard time finding its audience. Those judging from the title and the front cover and who are looking for something like Tokyo Gore Police are bound to be disappointed. The film is neither gory nor particularly scary. In fact, it winds up being rather charming. Ian Jane in a review on rockshockpop describes the film as "a bizarre amalgamation of different genres with an emphasis on action and, oddly enough, romantic comedy." And that's a pretty good description. The characters are likable, and the film deals effectively with themes of loss and survivor guilt through the interactions of characters and through liberal doses of magical realism. I wouldn't go so far as to elevate it to cult classic status. The film does have its flaws. Wire-fu has certainly been done better, and I found the intrusion of what can only be described as a music video into the middle of the movie a little distracting. Nevertheless, overall it kept me entertained and wanting to see how everything was going to turn out in the end. Todd Rigney said of it in his review at beyondhollywood that "emo horror nerds and their Asian girlfriends are going to love it." I hope so. It's a fun movie that deserves to find an audience somewhere.

I greatly anticipated this movie since I heard of it in late 2007. After recent releases like "The Machine Girl" (2008), "Chocolate" (2008), "The Chaser" (2008), and "Vexille" (2007) (all of which can be classified as awesome feats of pure entertainment), I was even more confident that East Asian cinema could continue its nearly perfect 2008 in terms of my personal highly anticipated releases. Well, I'm sorry to report that they dropped the ball with this one.

A high school student helps a cute girl in her fight against a chainsaw wielding wraith. The overall tone is much too silly for its own good, with a main character who's a total klutz, not very likable, and played by an actor who simply can't act. I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he's just bad. Sure, he's not quite as horrible as that blonde kid from "Battle Royale 2" (2003), but they should have gotten someone else. And why on earth is Rika Ishikawa relegated to a cameo? After her memorable bad girl performance in "Yo-Yo Girl Cop" (2006), she should have been the obvious choice for the lead female role here. The girl they got was okay, but Rika would have added more spice.

The action scenes are a mixed bag, some of which being blandly choreographed (the opening, the ending, etc.) while others are very cool (the swimming pool scene, the village brawl, etc.). All of the fights, however, are way too short, have no buildup or climax beforehand, and feel like they were randomly inserted just for the hell of it. The cinematography and SFX during the battles are very nice, but the editing seemed overly abrupt in a number of instances. Sometimes the wraith would show up, but the scene would cut away before the fight even begins. That's just crap, man! It's almost like they wanted to show the bad guy as many times as possible without actually having to put effort into providing an actual action scene. Still, all is not lost here. The aforementioned swimming pool and village brawl scenes were pretty damn sweet and fun to watch, but the action sequences on the whole just didn't feel satisfying to me.

I watched a version without English subtitles, so I can't comment on the dialogue. However, I can say without question that the subplot involving the high school kid's rockstar buddy was totally superfluous and should have been scrapped completely. The romantic interaction between the leads seemed pretty shallow too. Everything was just clichéd and formulaic with little in terms of interesting moments. There is the possibility that I missed something without the English subs, but I doubt I'll return to this movie in the future to find out (though I may re-watch a few action scenes now and again).

The filmmakers should have either made this a serious romance/action/fantasy film with a solid script, or a balls-to-the-wall action/comedy that goes nuts. Instead, they ended up making a film that's simply too safe and timid to be memorable, and in the end it just feels like they half-heartedly slapped it all together. I can't say I ever got bored, because it moved at a good pace and never really lost my attention, which is a good thing. But I walk away from this like I walk away from most Hollywood movies – with a nonchalant indifference and regret of what could have been (ala "Planet Terror").

I'm sure some people will enjoy this, but do yourself a favor and watch any number of recent East Asian titles before this one. In particular, try the aforementioned films for some truly satisfying summer blockbusters.