Karate Robo Zaborgar (Review)

Karate Robo Zaborgar

Karate Robo Zaborgar (2011)

Directed by Noboru Iguchi

[part of the NYAFF 2011, NEW YORK PREMIERE]

See? The Japanese are just like Hollywood. Sometimes you run out of ideas and have to remake old TV shows. You didn't think America was the only country to take a cheesy 70s television show and remake it for the big screen did you?

Karate Robo Zaborgar from the outtakes at then end of the film seemed like a 60s Batman meets robot anime kind of TV show. Who else but Noboru Iguchi
would remake this into a full fledged movie. Iguchi who has given us RoboGeisha and The Machine Girl (whose trailer went viral in America) is not new to the half robot half human dynamic. It's a Japanese WTF film pure and simple. You either love em or hate em.

I absolutely enjoyed the shit out of The Machine Girl but somehow KRZ is a little too wacky and cheesy in my book. That's not to say it doesn't have it's moments. Full of flying robots, human/borg hybrids, 90 foot tall Japanese teenage girl cyborg and bulldog tanks, I was fully awe inspired by the idiot-tacracy of it all. But I thought back to recent Japanese WTF films which I thought blew my mind. Big Man Japan is an absolute classic awesome WTF film that is coherent at it is crazy.

KRZ is also way to long running at 140 minutes! What you are essentially watching is 2 hour long episodes of a remade TV show. KRZ is 50% wacky and 25% absurd and 25% WTF. You have to make sure you brain is shut off to enjoy the film and when you do, it somehow gives you laughs you are shocked that you enjoy.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Daimon (Yasuhisa Furuhara) and his motorcycle/robot pal/karate expert, Zaborgar, protect the citizens of Japan from flying cyborg heads and samurai kissing monsters. But when Daimon falls in love with the villainous Miss Borg (Mami Yamasaki), the two buds have a falling out that could ruin everything. Any further summary would read like the scribblings of the world’s coolest, most cracked-out 13 year old: the plot is a 50 car pile-up of smackdowns, wild comedy and robot rugby girls with chest dragons. Iguchi, finally armed with a real budget, packs the screen with gonzo spectacle and delivers the kind of movie that leaves your ribs bruised from giggling and your face aching from grinning too much.

It’s not all wine and robots, though: when the film jumps ahead 25 years to show what happens when a hero is forgotten, Iguchi’s not kidding around. Like all of the wildest dreamers, he wants you to believe as much as he does. As Daimon himself, now a slouching schlub with an aching back (Itsuji Itao), proclaims, “Though diabetic…though over the hill…if one keeps trying, one can fight until the last moment.” That’s the spirit, and it’s the message of Iguchi’s joyously retro rock-out.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

You read the plot above? Go ahead I'll wait. Done? OK good.

Basically set as a 2 part episode, KRZ follows young Daimon and his adventures with his motorcycle transforming Zaborgar as they battle the evil Sigma who wants to basically destroy Japan. Dr. Akunomiya is the evil mastermind behind Sigma and he has a beautiful Miss Borg as his #1. As we see Daimon and ZABORGAR!!!! (who he can order to change into a motorcycle and fight in various martial arts styles) battle the evil henchmen, he also has to decide which is the greater evil. Sigma who murdered his father or the Japanese bureaucracy who are evil and greedy as well.

From bulldog tanks, football robot vixens to diarrhea robots, Daimon and Zaborgar battle with quirky karate and flying boomerang blades. I mean the fembots have monster demon heads coming out of their boobs and butt. You kind of know what the deal is when it comes to the Japanese. They love over the top cheesiness. It makes Troma look like a Michael Bay film.

The movie jumps 25 years later and the world is again threatened by Sigma. But now he's battling his son and his daughter, a unforeseen union by Miss Borg and himself. More wackiness ensues climaxed by Akiko his daughter being transformed into a skyscraper tall half robot half human killing machine.

The movie follows what seems to be the plot of the TV children's show. In the outtakes at the end, we see the same scenes from the movie as they were first aired on the TV show. It's hilarious bad in terms of quality but this is from the same industry that had a man in a dinosaur suit smashing cardboard cutouts of a city.

I'll admit, I liked KRZ for it's inexplicable way it can show me something I've never seen before. I indeed laughed a few times at some crude jokes as well as some timely social pop culture humor. Also seeing a giant robot muy thai another robot makes me smile. We often watch something on YouTube that comes from Japan and we usually go "Oh those wacky Japanese!" Well this is a movie where Western audiences will overload in all that is completely wacky and fun about fighting robot motorcycle transformers.

Like I said, it's a little too long and there really is so much you can take when you have to watch 2+ hours of this. Karate Robo Zaborgar is Sushi Typhoon and Iguchi's wink to Western cult audiences. You watch the trailer and you say "I gotta see this crazy Japanese movie! It looks fuckin awesome!" And it's clearly as awesome as advertised. But then you also realize the jokes are corny and the humor a little tasteless. And it's really really over the top.

It starts to remind you of a certain American robot movie.

See?

American and Japan aren't so different after all.

Gore-ipedia

Some light arterial spraying

WTF moment

Diarrhea monster?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

NYAFF 2011 film festival opens on 7/1. I've created a list of films to check out at this year's festival.

Head over to the official site for more info.

The Vitals

• The official site via NYAFF 2011

Rating:


Check out the trailer.

Waldo the Dog (Review)

Waldo the Dog

Waldo the Dog (2010)

Directed by Kris Canonizado

One of the benefits of running The Jaded Viewer is that you get contacted to screen a lot of independent films. Some are terrible, others middle of the road and sometimes on that rare occasion you get to see a film that completely makes you go WTF! that was crazy awesome.

Waldo the Dog is one of those films that was WTF crazy awesome.

Director Kris Canonizado gave me the opportunity to view his debut film and it's one of hell of a ride. Waldo the Dog is guerrilla filmmaking at its most raw. Echoing the 90s indie vibe where independent filmmaking was scorching hot, it has that throwback feel of DIY creativity I enjoyed back in the day. No film permits, blurred reality and improvised dialogue. Canonizado has made a film with oddball characters that's part rom com, part drama and 100% weird. It takes a subject matter that's super duper sensitive and runs it in a gauntlet of emotion.

Waldo the Dog will be unlike any other film you have ever seen. It's the equivalent of seeing a fancy car get wrecked, miraculously repaired and then totally wrecked again. As much as you'd like to look away you can't. It's just so mesmerizing to watch.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A guilt and shame ridden mentally unstable young man wears a dog mask to cope.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Produced by Shane Ryan (of Amateur Pornstar Killer fame) Waldo the Dog is clearly in the same meta world. The film takes place around San Diego, California and revolves around a world that is pure wacky suburbia. The opening scene of Waldo (Rook Kelly), is him in his dog like mask which gets the first WTF out of you. Without catching a breath. a disturbing rape scene shows up that gets you completely weirded out even more.

The next successive scenes are of Waldo doing his daily routine. He's a slightly large man, hooded sweatshirt, ripped vest and he wears gloves. He panhandles throughout the neighborhood and after getting a generous donation signs up for a wrestling school. At 100% mute, this proves hilarious. We see him collect bottles and cans so he can get cash. He also goes dumpster diving and aimlessly watches the pedestrian traffic. In one scene that had me cracking up Waldo gets enough cash for a trip to Del Taco (?) and eats a burrito. As he eats he dances. It's insanely funny.

Later, Waldo rescues a beautiful girl (Jaquelyn Xavier) from a group of rapist thugs and they begin to form a friendship. One begs to question why a girl would start to get to know a man who wears a dog mask and doesn't talk, but I like to think it's all magical realism (it's the excuse I give something that I think doesn't make sense).

Jaquelyn tries to figure out this goofy buffoon, having solo conversations with Waldo as Waldo answers her back via pantomime and gestures. Soon they are frolicking to McD's, becoming professional swingers (err I mean swinging on a playground swing), going to the movies and becoming best buds. Oh yeah, after every "date" Waldo likes to pleasure himself outside Jackie's window. I thought you should know.

Waldo's wrestling skills improve while he's in his pseudo relationship and he's ultimately kicking ass. But all this can't last and as the last half hour approaches, we get some odd reveals as our mute becomes unmute. And in the last 10 minutes are a frenzy of WTF as ultimately we get an unmasking that proves disastrous.

First let's talk about the performances. Rook Kelly as Waldo is superb. His mute performance has gotta be one of the best mute performances by a man wearing a dog mask...well ever. Obviously, all the scenes and dialogue are improvised with some direction from Canonizado but Kelly makes it seem effortless. He's clearly doing his best Marcel Marceau and acts a range of emotion from sad to happy to angry. You have to realize that he and Jaquelyn are acting where the world doesn't know they are acting. The other people they interact with are probably going WTF. Why is this man wearing a rubbery dog mask, hanging out with a hot girl and is being recorded by a film crew?

I realized Waldo had entered Borat like territory. We're watching a movie where some of the people in it don't know it's a movie. There's a bit of surrealism in all this. The reactions all become priceless for all involved.

Jaquelyn Xavier performs under some odd circumstances. Definitely improvising her lines has gotta be tough where her counterpart is mute. Some lines come off rehearsed while others flow naturally. It's a testament to her ability to make her performance feel real in a world full of absurdity.

At the end of this movie, I realized I had not just a seen a day in the life of Waldo, a seemingly crazy masked anti-hero. I was actually watching an evolution of a man who was plagued by a guilt of something he had done. Because of this he needed to punish himself in different ways. When Waldo finally talks, he goes all Silent Bob and asks a profound question. From the physical, be it getting pounded on the mat by wrestlers or by a group of children on the playground, Waldo is looking to be punished for what he had done. His mental block of guilt was to create the Waldo the Dog persona and live a life of poverty, though seeking forgiveness from his victim. At the end you feel obligated to pick a side. Are you still pro Waldo or anti Waldo now that you have ALL the information.

It's an emotional journey of redemption, albeit it is done with one camera and long continuous shots, there is a solid story in Waldo. That's not to say it's perfect. I'm willing to forgive the budget and the guerrilla style but my biggest gripe is the length. The movie is 2 hours long when it should be 90 minutes. I can see why Canonizado dragged out the monotonous life of Waldo to show us how Waldo has slowly descended himself into nothing, but after the 3rd or 4th scene of seeing him doing nothing, I was getting aggravated. My attention span can only take so much.

With all this serious talk, I want to emphasize Waldo is full of ridiculousness that has gotta be seen to be believed. From the wrestling training (Tough Enough doesn't look like this) to a $1 for a kiss pier scam, it's full of moments of genuine ha ha's. I can't believe I am writing this but I actually got comfortable watching a masked man in a rubber dog mask for 2 hours. That's saying something.

Canonizado's debut film is mesmerizing and is destined to be a cult classic. I can only imagine the undertaking to make a film with such difficulty. I had imagined this would be full of shaky cam and amateurish cliches but somehow it doesn't feel that way. It felt like a documentary at times, but also like a cohesive pro movie as well.

So like I said, you have to pick a side. Ultimately, the success of Waldo the Dog is whether or not you like it's main character. Throughout the 2 hours of getting to know Waldo, I liked him. From his successes (scoring the hot girl!) to his failures (he's not gonna be on RAW anytime soon) I felt for Waldo even after his ultimate evil is revealed.

Waldo the Dog is a film that will stick with you long after you've seen it. It's a breakout film by a talented director who dares to show you a glimpse of the absurd fiction of America. You might not always know where to look for it, but Kris Canonizado is a guide to lead the way.

Gore-ipedia

Nothing to graphic that a 8 year old couldn't handle.

Nude-ipedia

Nada

WTF moment

The reveal at the end and pretty much the entire movie

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I can't say enough good things about this film. I hope anybody who loves independent film will check this out. It deserves a cult following.

The Vitals

• Official Site (Watch the movie for only 99 cents!)
• Facebook Page
• Buy the DVD on Amazon
  

Rating:
1/2

Check out the trailer below.

"WALDO THE DOG" - FEATURE FILM TEASER TRAILER from Kris Canonizado on Vimeo.

WTF Films: Subconscious Cruelty

I've documented how my horror persona "the jaded viewer" came to be. With posts about the 5 Horror Movies that shaped my horror psyche and 5 websites that inspired this site, its a little glimpse into how the jaded viewer became jaded. The fact that I did a bit of horror trading back in the day has indeed made me witness some of the worst the best and the WTF of horror films.

But I'm going old school here. Some of you have heard of Subconscious Cruelty. Others have not. But if you have seen this visual mind fuck, you know where I'm going.

So introducing yet another ongoing feature, I bring you WTF Films. Films that are waaaaaaaaay over the edge when it comes to extreme underground horror.

Directed by Karim Hussain and produced by Mitch Davis, Subconscious Cruelty isn't an actual story driven movie but more of vignettes that make you question your morality. Truly one of the first shock movies of the 90s and early 00's, its there to obliterate your senses with scenes of full frontal nudity, deviant sex, masturbation, cannibalism and religious defamation.

Plus there is lots of bodily fluids oozing all over the fuckin place. Wanna see what I mean? Check out the clips below (OBVIOUSLY NSFW!)


Here is a weird Japanese trailer of the flick. Hahaha. I like how they compare it to David Lynch and David Cronenberg. It's a little more extreme than that dude.

Here's a couple of scenes of nekkidness and cannibalism and religious fuckedupness.




Not sick yet? Wanna see what they came up with for a birth of a baby scene No? C'mon yeah you do you fucked up mental case you.




I'm not saying it's good or bad, but you do start to wince quite a bit after watching the whole 92 min film. I mean even the clips above are quite gruesome and sickening. Sure it could all be artsy fartsy and avante garde. Showing tons of taboo shit in a film while narrating with Bad Religion like lyrics may be "intellectual" and metaphoric to some. Others will find it just a pile of heaping, smelly shit.

Who knows what the hell Karim Hussain was smoking back in 99. All I know is I remember this film for pushing me beyond what I could take visually in a "horror" film. Insano Steve and I always tried to go over the edge with our horror resume by searching and eventually seeing the supposed craziest, weirdest most fucked up shit possible.

Subconscious Cruelty was one of the first and most memorable.