FANTASIA Report: X CROSS Review

Holy crap, Kenta Fukasaku went and made a film that doesn't suck.

If ever there was an example of a film maker riding the family name, it is Kenta Fukasaku. The son of the legendary Kinji Fukasaku - the man behind stacks of classic yakuza films and, more recently, the cult classic Battle Royale - Kenta kind of fell into directing accidentally, taking over the reins of Battle Royale II when his father passed away very early in production. The results of that project were less than stellar but nobody could really blame the young, inexperienced film maker for that, considering the circumstances under which it was made. But after Battle Royale II Kenta had the directing bug and his producers realized they could market films around his famous name and so on he went. Fukasaku quickly turned out three middling to poor films and by the time his Sukeban Deka revival - Yo Yo Girl Cop - rolled around the word was pretty much out that Fukasaku Junior wasn't anywhere near as good as Fukasaku Senior.

And now comes X Cross, a shot of inspired lunacy that comes seemingly out of nowhere for Fukasaku - a giddy, delirious piece of work in which he finally stops taking himself so damn seriously and goes for the thrill centers of the brain and logic be damned in the process. Yeah, this thing's a blast.

Shiyori and Aiko couldn't be more different. Shiyori is shy and quiet, a subdued personality shocked by the sudden breakup of the only dating relationship she has ever had. Aiko, on the other head, is a full on vamp, all dolled up and effervescent with a penchant for sleeping with just about anything that moves. The duo really don't much understand each other but they are friends nonetheless and Aiko is taking her ever-so-sad friend away for a weekend at a remote hot springs resort to try and wash away her sadness. And, really, remote doesn't even begin to describe it. This place is in the middle of nowhere, a totally isolated logging village that has reinvented itself as a would-be resort town as its inhabitants have aged beyond the physical demands of logging. The place is strange and disturbing - bizarre scarecrows line the roads approaching town, the shuttle driver that takes them from the parking area into the resort proper is a full on hunchback who could be on loan from Notre Dame, their host at the inn a wrinkled old crone. And everybody in the place - absolutely everybody - walks with a pronounced limp. But odd though it is things seem okay until the two girls have an argument at the springs and go their separate ways.

Shiyori returns to their cabin where the sound of a ringing cell phone leads her into an upstairs closest. She answers the phone. "Get out of there!" a panicked voice commands, "They'll cut off your legs!" And then the pounding begins on the door downstairs and the chase is on, the village populated by a bizarre cult that cuts the legs off of traveling women and worships them as gods. Shiyori likes her legs, though, and has little interest in being worshiped. And what of Aiko? Well, she runs afoul of a bizarre frock coated and eye patched woman wielding a pair of simply MASSIVE scissors, the jilted former girlfriend of a boy Aiko seduced and then tossed away, the angry woman now on a quest for bloody revenge.

Over the top? X Cross finds the tallest mountain, climbs to the very peak then floats miles above that suspended from a hundred or so helium balloons. This is the film equivalent of placing a rabid squirrel into a box and then shaking that box for a minute or two: wild, unpredictable, possibly dangerous, and very, very funny when viewed from a safe distance. It does suffer from a bit of lag in the second act but recovers quickly before heading onto to a rollicking end that takes everything you might want from a cult slasher movie and then makes it bigger and wilder than anyone could hope. Fukasaku's one great strength has always been on the tech end - his camera work and production design is always top notch - and he pairs those elements with a dead solid cast and riotous script to create a true cult classic.