MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS (2020 - Japanese)

Studio:      SRS Cinema
Director:    Minoru Kawasaki
Writer:      Minoru Kawasaki, Masakazu Migita, Eiji Tsuburaya
Producer:  Minoru Kawasaki
Stars:     Keisuke Ueda, Yuya Asato, Ayano Yoshida Christie, Hide Fukumoto, Kei Grant, Masami Horiuchi, Gota Ihashi, Tomotaka Imamichi

Review Score:

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Summary:

An unexpected combination of an experimental serum and sushi-grade mollusks creates a giant squid, octopus, and crab that terrorize Tokyo.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

For his annual tradition of making ceremonial offerings on September 1st, Yuta Tanuma brings a squid, octopus, and crab gifted from his sushi master father to Namiyoke Shrine. On his way there however, someone knocks Yuta from his bike and steals the seafood.

A giant octopus and squid soon appear in the city to briefly battle each other. The Japanese Ministry names the octopus Takolla and the squid Ikalla. Commander Hibiki heads up SMAT, or Seafood Monster Attack Team, which forms to combat the creatures.

Yuta visits his friend Niimi, a Street Fighter enthusiast, at Niimi’s kitchenware shop. Niimi points out that Yuta will be suspected of unleashing the monsters because Yuta used to work at the Institute of Super Physical and Chemical Research (ISPCR) where he developed Setap Z, an experimental serum capable of enlarging living things.

Commander Hibiki partners with Defense Ministry analyst Nana Hoshiyama, who is also Yuta’s childhood crush, to question Yuta about the crisis. Realizing someone stole the seafood as well as his Setap Z research, Yuta suggests talking to rival scientist Shinjiro Hikoma.

Working with Nana and SMAT, Yuta formulates a plan help Takolla defeat Ikalla and then trap Takolla in a giant pot. Hikoma interrupts by insulting Yuta’s idea and instead suggests assaulting the creatures with rice vinegar to weaken them. Hikoma further needles Yuta by taking Nana on a date.

Takolla and Ikalla resurface. SMAT soldiers begin spraying the monsters with large rice vinegar hoses when a giant crab dubbed Kanilla suddenly appears and snips at the octopus and squid’s tentacles. With the vinegar unable to penetrate its carapace, Kanilla attacks the soldiers and destroys their Jeeps.

The government turns Takolla and Ikalla’s severed appendages into food. Monster meat becomes a widespread culinary craze. Yuta tells Nana how his Setap Z project started as a solution to the world’s food crisis.

Hikoma takes Nana on another date. Yuta interrupts to accuse Hikoma of stealing his research and unleashing the creatures, which Hikoma doesn’t deny. Despite her dissension, Hikoma and Yuta make Nana the prize in a bet to see which man will find a way to defeat the monsters. The tension causes an argument between Yuta and Nana.

Yuta initiates ‘Operation Seafood Bowl,’ which proposes turning National Stadium into a bowl to capture the creatures. Hikoma becomes jealous when Yuta joins SMAT as an official member. Yuta and Hikoma also get into a fistfight over a misunderstanding involving Nana.

The three monsters are led to the stadium when they resurface. Yuta and SMAT battle the creatures with recalibrated rice vinegar cannons, but Kanilla retaliates by unexpectedly shooting fireballs. The stadium’s sprinkler system then suddenly turns on and washes the vinegar off of the monsters.

Yuta and Nana discover Hikoma electronically hacking into the sprinkler system. Hikoma confesses to creating the creatures, but is upset Yuta continues to receive more attention than him.

Niimi arrives at the stadium with a modified video game controller. Niimi then activates a robotic Jumbo Cook, the oversized mascot for his kitchenware company. Powered by jets, Jumbo Cook flies to the stadium to battle the monsters.

Hikoma hacks Niimi’s controller to stall Jumbo Cook. Kanilla snips off Jumbo Cook’s right arm, which falls to the ground and seemingly crushes Hikoma.

Niimi activates Jumbo Cook’s hidden knife-sword arm. Jumbo Cook cuts up the creatures and the stadium becomes a huge bowl for serving the monsters as food.

Three years later, Yuta, Nana, and Niimi bring a lobster, sea urchin, and globefish to Namiyoke Shrine for the September 1st offerings. However, Hikoma secretly poses as a disguised priest and takes the new seafood from the trio.

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Review:

Each summer, a daunting task resurfaces regarding how best to select Fantasia Film Festival movies for screening. Montreal’s premier program features dozens of titles from all over the globe, many of which have not yet released or else don’t have preexisting coverage in English. With nothing more to go on than maybe a single still frame and a copywriter’s media summary, it can be a difficult challenge to choose titles that’ll hit a personal sweet spot for entertainment or prove popular with genre film fans.

Sometimes you luck out though, and find a blurb so perfect, you instantly know you absolutely have to see a certain movie. In looking for info on Minoru Kawasaki’s “Monster Seafood Wars,” I read this synopsis on IMDb (attributed to Avery Guerra) and my mouth immediately touched each ear in a delighted grin:

“Yuta, a young master at the Tsukiji Fish Market, accidentally drops his meal of mixed seafood into the Sumida River. Some time afterwards a gigantic mutated squid monster arises from the depths and begins to wreak havoc upon an awe-stricken Tokyo … As it seems things couldn’t get any worse an enormous mutant octopus monster emerges from the deep and heads into a clash of the titans with the gargantuan squid. As a last ditch effort, the government forms the Seafood Monster Attack Team (SMAT) … But just as the tide appears to be turning in humanity’s favor, a colossal crab monster appears, joining in the Monster Seafood Wars and plunging the world into culinary chaos.”

You mean to tell me there’s a comedic kaiju movie out there that starts with someone fumbling his sushi lunch into the ocean and it somehow turns into colossal creatures that attack Japan? If that Futurama meme weren’t played out, I’d insert the gif of Fry gripping a wad of cash and excitedly ask, how soon can I get this in my eyeballs?

Taking care of some housekeeping first, while the gist of that summary hits the major notes, it isn’t entirely accurate. Yuta isn’t a Tsukiji sushi master. He’s a young scientist who was ousted from his employer for blowing their budget on research intended to enlarge living things as a food shortage solution. Yuta’s father is a seafood chef however. Each year on September 1st, he provides Yuta with three of his finest specimens so Yuta can take them to a shrine as ceremonial offerings.

This year, someone steals Yuta’s squid, crab, and octopus on his way to the shrine. Two of those aquatic animals resurface, but as massive monsters duking it out over the city’s skyline. Yuta’s friend Niimi warns that he’ll be suspected of creating the creatures since the coincidence of Yuta’s research and the missing mollusks looks like a conspiracy. To Yuta, the fishy smell indicates the conniving work of Hikoma, who wasn’t just Yuta’s rival at the lab, but also vies for the affection of Yuta’s childhood crush Nana.

As a Defense Ministry analyst, Nana teams up with SMAT commander Hibiki to tackle the concerning creature crisis. Yuta and Hikoma work with SMAT too, but can’t help butting heads over competing plans to take down the behemoths and win over Nana. Between Hikoma’s rice vinegar cannons and Yuta’s idea to turn a stadium into a gigantic soup bowl, the only thing anyone can agree on is that meat from these mutated monsters tastes unbelievably amazing.

“Monster Seafood Wars” brings back the brand of good-humored B-movie silliness we used to see out of outfits like Troma, but from when that kind of cheap cheesiness was still charming and not swimming in unflushed toilets of lowbrow irreverence. You’ll see seams like outlines around actors against blue screens, yet the movie doesn’t try to overblow its low-grade look. “Monster Seafood Wars” simply stages everything almost identically to a 1960s “Godzilla” classic and lets camp value come naturally.

Throwback tricks give off a goofy vibe without the film feeling like it screams, “look at how bonkers I can be!” The monster suits look like cartoon incarnations of the creatures they represent, but not much more so than vintage Gamera or Minya. The costumed actors also emulate old school tics like doing excited little hops and generally appearing uncoordinated without any buffoonish Tor Johnson bumbling. The camera gets in on the retro act too, slipping in a few sudden zooms and filming at a higher speed so fights have that slowed movement effect.

Caution to kaiju fans though, “Monster Seafood Wars” contains moderately more seafood than it does monsters. Octopus versus squid action occurs for maybe a minute in the movie’s early moments, then doesn’t happen again for almost another half hour.

When killer crab Kanilla steps into the ring (yes, the big beasts have names), it snips off several tentacles from Takolla and Ikalla. Cooking and eating the appendages creates Japan’s unlikeliest culinary craze. The movie then launches into a nearly 15-minute montage of various tourists, YouTube personalities, celebrities, poseurs, and other people going wide-eyed at the tantalizing taste of mutated monster meat. This makes for a big detour from the main story that doubles as a generous bathroom break for unamused viewers. Although in fairness to 33% of the film’s title, this sequence is appetizingly appealing for ‘food porn’ fans as it highlights scrumptiously sexy shots of ramen, dumplings, and other provocative plates worthy of making mouths water.

A couple of characterizations are lean. The romantic subplot doesn’t have a whole lot of heat. I’m also undecided about how effective the documentary frame featuring intercutting interview pieces actually is. But whenever you’re in the mood to watch zany schlock, you can rarely go wrong with something weird out of Japan. And “Seafood Monster Wars” serves up a delectable dinner of cool comic book conflicts, Saturday matinee mirth, and enjoyably frivolous fun.

Review Score: 75

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