DVD Review: Minoru Kawasaki's EXECUTIVE KOALA

Does abstract weirdness get any better than Executive Koala (Koara kachô)? The answer to this rhetorical question is "yes" but Minoru Kawasaki's film definitely stands out amongst cinematic oddities of recent vintage. It is also safe to say that Executive Koala is easily the best of the three Kawasaki DVDs released by Synapse Films.

Tamura has a great life. He is a rising corporate star who elicits the admiration of his co-workers. He has a wonderful girlfriend named Yoko. He is also a giant koala bear. When Yoko ends up the victim of a brutal murder, Tamura comes under suspicion for both her murder and the murder of his long missing wife. Least one forget this vital fact, its worth mentioning again that Tamura is a giant koala bear. Its also worth mentioning that his boss is a giant bunny rabbit and his local grocer is a frog.

Executive Koala must have looked like nonsense on paper but it all comes together on the screen. Part of the reason why it works is because the koala bear and other animal characters look weird but are played like human characters. Thus, the viewer is forced to empathize with Tamura's plight from a human perspective while working around the fact that he is obviously a guy in a koala costume. The comedy is mostly situational as Kawasaki toys around with the human/animal divide ("A koala? A frog?"). Kawasaki reserves the really weird material for the third act, which kicks off with a musical number that presents the life story of the mysterious koala character in the form of a criminal trial. The dream sequences and pretzel plot twists pile up to the point of excess but such overkill just adds to the joy of the Executive Koala experience.