Over The Top To Tokyo Horror That's Got The Lot
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday October 18, 1989
IMAGINE a film in which The Exorcist meets Godzilla, with a dash of Stephen Spielberg thrown in, and you have Tokyo the Last Megalopolis.
Directed by Akio Jissoji, the film is touted as one of gems of the 13 Japanese films showing at the Academy Twin Cinema from tomorrow. For six days Tokyo on Film presents a program ranging through satirical comedies, animation and avant-garde dramas.
Tokyo the Last Megalopolis is a period piece, a supernatural thriller and a schlock-horror extravaganza. It is a must for all students of the hyper-real.
It is 1923 and Tokyo will be destroyed unless the spirit of an ancient warrior is awakened by a malicious psychic named Cato.
The film works on one level as an excessive inventory of classic horror, gleaned from the classics, B-grade movies and sci-fi comics.
A severed hand brings a possessed screen beauty to orgasm; naked women recite incantations waist-deep in underground lakes; eyeballs frequently turn an evil white and an array of gremlin-like characters out-Spielberg Spielberg
The pleasure derived from picking the films that have been Jissoji's fodder is boundless. Highlights from The Exorcist, Gremlins, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Evil Dead have been so skilfully reworked that the Japanese rendition seems more like Hollywood than the originals.
The film soars to great heights with special effects, yet is ultimately not scary: the cartoon aesthetic sanitises even the goriest moments.
In fact, the incredible pace, the one-dimensional characters and the switches from one horror mode to another render the narrative practically redundant. Nevertheless, in terms of sheer excess this film is fabulous.
The festival has been presented by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the NSW Government to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Sydney and Tokyo becoming sister cities.
Tokyo on Film, from tomorrow until Thursday at the Academy Twin Cinema, Paddington. Session times will be appearing in The Sydney Morning Herald.
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald