The Worst Film Ever

Simply Perfect

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely brilliant

The first movie commentary I did was for Yasujirō Ozu's Tokyo Story, a slow, plodding serious art house film that explores generational relationships in 1950's era Japan. Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge is about as far from that as it gets. It's all about fun, and coming up with three reasons for it is exceptionally easy. For starters, it's called Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge. I mean, how cool is that? Moreover, it features an attractive school girl/warrior who throws daggers from a garter belt holster and fights a villain who is heralded by the snow, descends from the moon, and sports a chainsaw as his weapon of choice. Still, as cool as all that sounds, I wouldn't be surprised if this movie fell flat on it's face at the box office, as I would imagine it might have a hard time finding its audience. Those judging from the title and the front cover and who are looking for something like Tokyo Gore Police are bound to be disappointed. The film is neither gory nor particularly scary. In fact, it winds up being rather charming. Ian Jane in a review on rockshockpop describes the film as "a bizarre amalgamation of different genres with an emphasis on action and, oddly enough, romantic comedy." And that's a pretty good description. The characters are likable, and the film deals effectively with themes of loss and survivor guilt through the interactions of characters and through liberal doses of magical realism. I wouldn't go so far as to elevate it to cult classic status. The film does have its flaws. Wire-fu has certainly been done better, and I found the intrusion of what can only be described as a music video into the middle of the movie a little distracting. Nevertheless, overall it kept me entertained and wanting to see how everything was going to turn out in the end. Todd Rigney said of it in his review at beyondhollywood that "emo horror nerds and their Asian girlfriends are going to love it." I hope so. It's a fun movie that deserves to find an audience somewhere.

You wouldn't think a movie about a school girl in a short skirt battling a supernatural, chainsaw wielding monster would be this solemn and dull. But Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge barely even qualifies as a martial arts or action flick. This whole thing is really an extended metaphor on dealing with grief, depression and a sense of useless alienation among Japanese young people. At least, that's what I think it's about. It's not all that easy to discern the emotional beats and cultural allusions in Japanese cinema.Yosuke (Hayato Ichihara) is a boarding school student who's been wallowing in depression and self-loathing ever since his bolder, tow headed friend got himself killed in a motorcycle accident. He's on his way to wasting his life until he meets Eri (Megumi Seki), a young girl who battles the aforementioned chainsaw wielding monster every night. Yosuke finds purpose in helping Eri fight her demonic opponent and she gradually warms to his dorky attentions. But then Yosuke's father insists that he move to a new town and Eri convinces herself that she must take on her final fight alone.If you expect this to be an exciting exhibition of special effects and wire fu, you'll be grievously disappointed. The action scenes are almost all truncated, without any design and leading to no climax. Half the time we don't even get to see the beginning or the end of a fight. That's because this is actually an art house movie about young people dealing with senseless loss which externalizes that conflict into a dark figure with a gigantic chainsaw. What it has is a lot of brooding with a pop music video thrown in toward the end.Based on a manga comic book, Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge isn't all that horrible. It is way too long, by at least 30 minutes, and so peculiar in its storytelling that I can't think too many folks would like it. I mean, the DVD cover makes it look like a movie about Leatherface after he's been bitten by a werewolf and I doubt the kind of audience attracted to that would appreciate watching a couple of Japanese teens slowly grapple with the meaninglessness of existence.Unless you have a taste for something odd, you'll be happier staying away from this Edge.

I grabbed this DVD at my Tsutaya mostly for the unusual title, but I was pleasantly surprised. As one of the other reviewers here said, it is a coming age film, or in other words, part of the Hero's Journey tradition. I don't think that any spoiler warnings are in order here because if you have ever read a book or seen a movie, then you most likely know the themes and progression of a film such as this one. Is that a problem? Hey, if it ain't broke why try to fix it? This story has been fine for thousands of years so let it go on.Our hero, Yousuke, is a complete no-hoper who has positioned himself under the shadow of his recently deceased best friend, Noto. Our hero-to-be constantly strives to be half the man (boy?) that Noto was, but that is not to say that he was an ideal because truly he was quite reckless but he had such spirit that is hard not be impressed. It isn't long either before Yousuke meets our heroine, so really this story could be part of the "heroes' journey", AHEM, please pardon my English teacher enthusiasm for the possessive plural apostrophe.Anyway ...Eri, our heroine, is recovering from tragedy herself and on top of that is pursued nightly by a chainsaw wielding giant that seems to have no other purpose other than to dice her into pieces. These two kids become seemingly unlikely partners but I say "seemingly" because part of the fun of this kind of story is finding out if that is true or not, and of course they have their own personal demons of their to deal with along the way. The film quickly shows its coming-of-age colours, which is probably going to stump quite a few film fans that think of Japan as just a source of arterial spray and dismemberment.I can't blame them because it is the fault of Western distributors who think we would only go for that kind of thing. I mean, who would watch something where everyone speaks funny and does weird cultural stuff if it WASN'T ultra violent? I say that with total sarcasm but sadly it is the truth for far too many people brought up by labels touting words like "EXTREME" and other macho and exploitative vocabulary. What it amounts to is that distributors now have to market every Japanese action oriented film as if is IS one of those spray heavy cheese-fests, even if they aren't. They have to market to people that say things like "it's so cool; Japanese people are weird", even though ironically, a films like Tokyo Gore Police and Machine Girl are actually designed for a Western audience, chasing the exploitation film resurgence.The point is, Negachain is a film that goes for sentimentality and melodrama a lot more than it does for hi-octane action. The story and drama as it unfolds might seem obvious to some, and it might feel heavy handed to others. Other people might find themselves yelling at the screen in response to something that they feel a character should or shouldn't be doing. But I would like to say that it's obvious because it's Life and as much as we might deny it, our own lives would make for pretty predictable melodramas too. It's heavy handed because that is what teen drama is like; teenagers need the subtlety of a jack hammer. It is designed for a good cathartic cry, and perhaps the Japanese style seems heavy handed to many people because they are already immune to heavy handedness of Hollywood. "I'm the king of world" and "you had me at hello" and all that junk.And isn't being exasperated with characters and telling them what to do a result of being drawn into a story enough that you care what happens in it? The only reason I might yell "no don't do that you fool!" is because I care about the story and I want to save the character some embarrassment or a sticky end. It's a good thing, plus I am a sucker for melodrama and the entire coming of age genre as a whole, so with or without a super-powered school girl and a chainsaw wielding monster, this film would have pulled me in anyway.And in terms of that chainsaw beast, I have to say that it is one of the coolest villains I have yet seen. It is a kind of Grim Reaper brought into the modern, heavy metal age. It is like ol' Grim took the soul of some 80s metal head and flipped through his record collection before he left the apartment. "Oh, that would be pretty nifty", he said in a deep hollow rumble, pulling out his notebook and a pen.Luckily as well, the way that he moves and how the fights are put together never reaches a Kamen Rider level of rubberyness and I was very relieved about that. As a whole, the wire work and CGI is outstanding and is definitely an example of how the "less is more" maxim can get fantastic results. The film never steps beyond its limits. Definitely, between Eri's leaps, flips and throwing-knives and Chainsaw Man's deft aerial slice and dice, the film's few battles are certainly impressive.However, fundamentally, this film is about two people and their own emotional and spiritual quests, written for a teenage audience. The creature is IN the film but the film isn't ABOUT the creature. What is at the core of the whole thing is whether or not our hero and heroine can transcend their flaws, weaknesses, fears and despair and become better people. Thus is the Heroes' Journey and I really enjoyed this film's take on it, complete with teenage angst, sentimental melodrama, and of course wicked cool fights between a high school girl and a chainsaw wielding maniac!

Every man's dream is to become a hero. A true hero protects his girl, defeats the bad guy, and dies in the process. Not everyone is cut out to be a hero though, and this is what this movie is all about.It starts out with the protagonist meeting the heroine in a park, where she's suddenly attacked by a chainsaw-man from sky. Surprisingly, she has superhuman strength as well, and they duel it out. Ever since that day, the protagonist goes on chainsaw-man-hunting with the girl.Reading the plot synopsis, you might expect a bloody action B-movie like the "Machine Girl", or "Oneechanbara", but it's not. It happens to be a relatively-high-budgeted seishun (coming-of-age) film.Seki Megumi was absolutely hot in this movie. I've been a fan of her for a long time, but this is the best film she's appeared in, and had a considerable screen time. The action sequences were pretty cool, and she also played the character very well. I used to hate Ichihara Hayato's acting, but with "Rookies", "700 Days of Battle", and now this, I'm turning into a fan. What I noticed recently was that he is an exceptionally talented narrator in films, really sets the mood.Direction in this film was absolutely fantastic. There were many cool action scenes, heart-warming everyday scenes, and hilarious comedy. This film has got it all. SFX/CG was amazing for Japanese standards.There were many things left unexplained in this movie. The identity of the "Chainsaw-man" was never revealed to the end, we don't know if Eri ever knew about Noto, the source of her superpowers, and the the whole thing with the Noto character, just to name a few, but that's okay because they are not the main themes of this film. The main theme of this movie is about the protagonist falling in love, overcoming his cowardice, and finding the purpose in his life. Chainsaw-man simply represents Eri's battle against her inner-demons. (literally...) The director chose to leave extras to our imaginations and I will use mine.I've heard of GReeeeN's ending theme song "BE FREE" before watching this movie, and I really liked it before, but now I love it even more. For some reason, tears streamed down my eyes when the ending credit started scrolling.I'm certain many of you will hate this movie, and to be honest, I don't know if I interpreted it correctly myself, but I thought this was a really well-produced, unique and touching seishun film. My favorite Japanese film of 2008.