BATTLE LEAGUE HORUMO Review
[Our thanks to Charles Webb for the following review.]
In a comedic performance, there's a fine line between playing a role with abandon and simply mugging for the camera. Battle League Horumo succeeds largely in part due to its performers throwing themselves just up to - but not over - that fine line.
Based on a bestselling fantasy novel, the movie plays like Pokémon for the college set, with its lead, Akira (Takayuki Yamada of Train Main-fame) joining a mysterious club just to get close to his dream girl, Ms. Sawara (Sei Ashina, icily radiant). The club seems fairly innocuous at first with free food, drinks, and outings led by Sugawara (YosiYosi Arakawa of Survive Style 5+). But there are signs something is up from the outset - from the club leader insisting emphatically that the club is perfectly normal and not at all weird to a kimono-clad midnight march to the city center for a meeting with other clubs in some inscrutable ceremony.
It's only a matter of time before Sugawara clues in Akira and the rest of the freshman club members to the group's true purpose: they train and battle armies of diminutive, pucker-faced oni (demons) against the other teams to win an annual title.
The movie drapes this slim premise on a group of energetic and unrestrained performances. Commanding the little demon armies requires the individual masters to engage in a variety of hip-thrusting dances and pirouettes accompanied by at times frantic, at times boisterous shouts. The Horumo in the title comes from a traditional shout of surrender which ends the match. I found the consequences of declaring surrender too early a funny bit that the movie extends as one of Akira's teammates is forced (by the gods, no less) to don a traditional top knot.
And while there's not a lot of it, there is nonetheless some effective and committed character work by Yamada, Ashina, and the always wonderful Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill, Battle Royale) given a makeunder with a pair of square glasses that combine with a hairdo that makes her look like an educated mushroom. In an aside the movie tells us she looks unfortunately similar to an 80's sitcom actor. I'll take their word for it. Again, the actors commit to these roles and convincingly sell their relationships: the weak link in a love triangle, a gorgeous egoist, a tactless braniac with love to give - they all work.
Less convincing are the effects used to create the oni, created by animation studio GONZO. Presented as chirping CG goblins, they bound, hop, and leap around the screen and at no point do their appearance take the viewer out of the movie. Just don't go looking for the second coming of Gollum. The actors react to them in ways that sell the comedy of each of the frantic battle scenes and that's the most important part.
Because without commitment to their roles this is a movie that could have easily been undone by its young cast.
Thanks to Viz Pictures for providing a screener copy of the film. Review by Charles Webb.
In a comedic performance, there's a fine line between playing a role with abandon and simply mugging for the camera. Battle League Horumo succeeds largely in part due to its performers throwing themselves just up to - but not over - that fine line.
Based on a bestselling fantasy novel, the movie plays like Pokémon for the college set, with its lead, Akira (Takayuki Yamada of Train Main-fame) joining a mysterious club just to get close to his dream girl, Ms. Sawara (Sei Ashina, icily radiant). The club seems fairly innocuous at first with free food, drinks, and outings led by Sugawara (YosiYosi Arakawa of Survive Style 5+). But there are signs something is up from the outset - from the club leader insisting emphatically that the club is perfectly normal and not at all weird to a kimono-clad midnight march to the city center for a meeting with other clubs in some inscrutable ceremony.
It's only a matter of time before Sugawara clues in Akira and the rest of the freshman club members to the group's true purpose: they train and battle armies of diminutive, pucker-faced oni (demons) against the other teams to win an annual title.
The movie drapes this slim premise on a group of energetic and unrestrained performances. Commanding the little demon armies requires the individual masters to engage in a variety of hip-thrusting dances and pirouettes accompanied by at times frantic, at times boisterous shouts. The Horumo in the title comes from a traditional shout of surrender which ends the match. I found the consequences of declaring surrender too early a funny bit that the movie extends as one of Akira's teammates is forced (by the gods, no less) to don a traditional top knot.
And while there's not a lot of it, there is nonetheless some effective and committed character work by Yamada, Ashina, and the always wonderful Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill, Battle Royale) given a makeunder with a pair of square glasses that combine with a hairdo that makes her look like an educated mushroom. In an aside the movie tells us she looks unfortunately similar to an 80's sitcom actor. I'll take their word for it. Again, the actors commit to these roles and convincingly sell their relationships: the weak link in a love triangle, a gorgeous egoist, a tactless braniac with love to give - they all work.
Less convincing are the effects used to create the oni, created by animation studio GONZO. Presented as chirping CG goblins, they bound, hop, and leap around the screen and at no point do their appearance take the viewer out of the movie. Just don't go looking for the second coming of Gollum. The actors react to them in ways that sell the comedy of each of the frantic battle scenes and that's the most important part.
Because without commitment to their roles this is a movie that could have easily been undone by its young cast.
Thanks to Viz Pictures for providing a screener copy of the film. Review by Charles Webb.
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