One Cut of the Dead

One Cut of the Dead

Director: Shin’ichirô Ueda. Cast Takayuki Hamatsu, Yuzuki Akiyama, Harumi Shuhama. 

Now let me tell you, this film requires a lot of patience. But given its 100% score of rotten tomatoes, I was willing to give it a chance. I have to be honest though, I found myself wondering 

“How long should I carry on watching this?” more than once. 

But I’m glad I did persevere. 

* * * (MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD) * * * 

The film is essentially a film within a film… within a film… (within a film?). It reminded me a little bit of those plays like “The Play That Goes Wrong” and especially “Noises Off” for its 3 act structure. 

It’s a sort of love letter to no-bugbet guerrilla-style film-making. Living in Oblivion obviously comes to mind and of course Day for Night (but clearly there’s no comparison).

It’s a film that basically rewards you right at the end in the last act, where finally all it’s revealed and everything clicks together and makes sense, including all those bits which you thought were a bit “odd” or just bad.

At which point, it’s definitely A LOT OF FUN and I can see why a lot of people warmed up to it. 

Whether the “payoff” (doesn’t matter how much fun it is) is enough to make this the masterpiece everyone is talking about is very debatable. Because it order to get there, you’ll have to go through such an extended and elaborate set-up, with bad acting, unfunny jokes and a terrible script.