Fantasia 2011: DEADBALL Review
In 2003, director Yudai Yamaguchi (MEATBALL MACHINE, CROMARTIE HIGH SCHOOL) and star Tak Sakaguchi joined forces to create BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL. A delirious, utterly out-of-its-mind affair, it cast Sakaguchi -- star of VERSUS and of the likewise luridly violent and goofy YAKUZA WEAPON,
also at Fantasia this year -- as a gifted high school baseball pitcher
drawn into a bizarre, post-apocalyptic baseball tournament to the death.
It was bizarre, bloody, frequently hilarious and also a musical. And
they had so much fun doing it, they're doing it again.
Yamaguchi and Sakaguchi reunite in 2011 for DEADBALL, a film that is not a sequel to BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL but rather an entirely fresh spin on the same characters. Once again, Sakaguchi -- now 35 years old -- takes on the part of 17-year-old baseball prodigy Jubeh Yakyu. A troubled youth who turned to a life of crime and became Japan's most feared juvenile delinquent after accidentally killing his father with his famed fireball pitch, Jubeh has been sent to the Pterodactyl Juvenile Reformatory. The reform school from hell, Pterodactyl is run by the granddaughter of a former Nazi collaborator and her sadistic aide Ilsa. Residents are fed vomit for breakfast and subjected to intensive body cavity searches. The only way out is baseball. Participants in the coming tournament are promised better conditions, and Jubeh will participate whether he wants to or not.
A no-holds-barred splatter comedy with no sense of good taste or decorum whatsoever, DEADBALL fully embraces its own insanity. This is, after all, a film that has its lead playing a character less than half his age. There's no point in keeping a straight face after that. No gag is too extreme, no joke too tasteless for DEADBALL. This is a comedy by and for fans of the extreme Japanese splatter movement and it makes no excuses for that. And, yes, Tak sings.
The response to Yudai Yamaguchi's DEADBALL will likely stand as something of a barometer of how people feel about the Sushi Typhoon led charge of Japanese splatter films in general. The 'smallest' - read 'lowest budgeted' and 'shortest production schedule' - of the Typhoon titles this year, DEADBALL is a somewhat rag tag affair put together by a group of close friends seemingly purely because they thought it would be funny to do it. No joke is too silly, extreme or repulsive for DEADBALL and those who share Sakaguchi and Yamaguchi's sense of humor will find it absolutely hysterical while others ... well, there's not a ton to fall back on if the humor doesn't work for you.
In the years since VERSUS became an international hit I have become increasingly of the opinion that the wrong man behind the camera took the credit for the stuff that worked in that early splatter horror effort. Praise was heaped on director Ryuhei Kitamura - whose output since has been inconsistent, to put it gracefully - for what, in retrospect, appears to have been more the contributions of fight choreographer Yuji Shimomura and producer Yudai Yamaguchi. And while Yamaguchi will likely never have the same sort of global audience that Kitamura does as a director thanks to his very peculiar sense of humor, Yamaguchi has become the far more interesting director. His work - even in a low budget, inside joke of a project like DEADBALL - has an energy and a life to it that far outstrips his more famous former partner. And while you may shake your head at how ridiculous his ideas are, there are more ideas jammed into every frame of any Yamaguchi work than you find in many larger, more serious works.
DEADBALL is not for everyone. That is certain. But that's fine. Its creators didn't mean it for everyone. They meant it for themselves. And if you want to tag along and enjoy the ride, more power to you.
Yamaguchi and Sakaguchi reunite in 2011 for DEADBALL, a film that is not a sequel to BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL but rather an entirely fresh spin on the same characters. Once again, Sakaguchi -- now 35 years old -- takes on the part of 17-year-old baseball prodigy Jubeh Yakyu. A troubled youth who turned to a life of crime and became Japan's most feared juvenile delinquent after accidentally killing his father with his famed fireball pitch, Jubeh has been sent to the Pterodactyl Juvenile Reformatory. The reform school from hell, Pterodactyl is run by the granddaughter of a former Nazi collaborator and her sadistic aide Ilsa. Residents are fed vomit for breakfast and subjected to intensive body cavity searches. The only way out is baseball. Participants in the coming tournament are promised better conditions, and Jubeh will participate whether he wants to or not.
A no-holds-barred splatter comedy with no sense of good taste or decorum whatsoever, DEADBALL fully embraces its own insanity. This is, after all, a film that has its lead playing a character less than half his age. There's no point in keeping a straight face after that. No gag is too extreme, no joke too tasteless for DEADBALL. This is a comedy by and for fans of the extreme Japanese splatter movement and it makes no excuses for that. And, yes, Tak sings.
The response to Yudai Yamaguchi's DEADBALL will likely stand as something of a barometer of how people feel about the Sushi Typhoon led charge of Japanese splatter films in general. The 'smallest' - read 'lowest budgeted' and 'shortest production schedule' - of the Typhoon titles this year, DEADBALL is a somewhat rag tag affair put together by a group of close friends seemingly purely because they thought it would be funny to do it. No joke is too silly, extreme or repulsive for DEADBALL and those who share Sakaguchi and Yamaguchi's sense of humor will find it absolutely hysterical while others ... well, there's not a ton to fall back on if the humor doesn't work for you.
In the years since VERSUS became an international hit I have become increasingly of the opinion that the wrong man behind the camera took the credit for the stuff that worked in that early splatter horror effort. Praise was heaped on director Ryuhei Kitamura - whose output since has been inconsistent, to put it gracefully - for what, in retrospect, appears to have been more the contributions of fight choreographer Yuji Shimomura and producer Yudai Yamaguchi. And while Yamaguchi will likely never have the same sort of global audience that Kitamura does as a director thanks to his very peculiar sense of humor, Yamaguchi has become the far more interesting director. His work - even in a low budget, inside joke of a project like DEADBALL - has an energy and a life to it that far outstrips his more famous former partner. And while you may shake your head at how ridiculous his ideas are, there are more ideas jammed into every frame of any Yamaguchi work than you find in many larger, more serious works.
DEADBALL is not for everyone. That is certain. But that's fine. Its creators didn't mean it for everyone. They meant it for themselves. And if you want to tag along and enjoy the ride, more power to you.
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