Kitamura's films don't always work for me, but I've already realised that it's not just the fact that the director mixes things I really like with things I don't like so much...in fact, it has a lot to do with my state of mind and how I "dive" or not into the film. After the suffering of boredom that was Night Sky (previous film at Grimmfest), I had to refill myself with 500ml of Monster Energy and was prepared for the worst, so all that came was...music to my ears.
As a relatively serious thriller, this works well for almost two full acts, with some good characters and others as annoying as vuvuzelas in my ear for 90 minutes. Then, when everything starts to get more predictable and repetitive, the film pulls out its secret weapon: absurd levels of gratuitous violence, blood everywhere, and some of the most original scenes in recent times. I laughed at and that was the intention. The last act is brutal, it's over-the-top, but it's really fun and this dose of adrenaline was all I could ask for after the traumatic experience I had before. In the midst of a well-known cast, it was the young Gigi Zumbado who proved to be an excellent surprise.
