Connect with us
Monster Seafood Wars

Film

Fantasia 2020: Monster Seafood Wars is Endearingly Silly, but Overly Talky

You always know you’re in for a weird time when you sit down to a Minoru Kawasaki movie. To call him an eclectic filmmaker is an understatement, and the director’s campy, often surrealist style easily puts him in the same camp as the likes of Noboru Iguchi or early-career Takashi Miike. His latest film, “Monster Seafood Wars”, appears at first glance to be a low-fi Kaiju romp in which a trio of seafood monsters menace Japan. While it certainly is that in part, Kawasaki’s roving attention span and eccentric tendencies make it a far stranger animal than even the colossal monsters it deals with.

Monster Seafood Wars

Things start off simply enough when an octopus, crab, and squid are set loose after being dosed with an experimental growth serum. The animals grow to titanic size and a special team is assembled to fight them off. Among this team is Yuta, the inept nerd who invented the serum and kicked this whole mess off, to begin with. In addition to fixing his mistake, Yuta is also determined to win the love of one of his teammates by overcoming his more suave romantic rival.

You’d think that the whole romance angle would be more of a B-plot, taking a backseat to the kaiju mayhem, but you’d be wrong. In truth, the actual kaiju aspect of “Monster Seafood Wars” is relatively secondary in terms of focus. Instead, Kawasaki spends far more time on the human characters. Similarly to his 2006 film “The World Sinks Except Japan”, Kawasaki’s focus is more on everything around the disaster at hand than the details of the disaster itself. There’s an extended segment of the film dedicated to the discovery that the meat of the rampaging creatures is all kinds of delicious, right down to a scene wherein every principal cast member’s thoughts upon their first sampling of kaiju meat are broadcast to the audience via voiceover.

This is where the film may lose some people, unfortunately. Audience members expecting a heavier focus on fun, if low-fi, kaiju antics will almost certainly struggle with some of the film. This is compounded by a lengthy portion of the first third or so being dominated by endless scenes of clunky exposition blandly shot in boardrooms and apartments. The film livens up after this, but it is a bit of a hurdle to get past this early part of the film.

Monster Seafood Wars

One almost wonders of Kawasaki’s focus on human characters talking problem to death is perhaps a sly critique of the semi-recent Shin Godzilla, which similarly put its focus on human reactions to the crisis rather than the action of the crisis itself. Of course, it’s also just as possible that this is due to budgetary restraints and Kawasaki’s own offbeat tendencies.

Despite its more talky tendencies, Monster Seafood Wars is the kind of movie meant for Fantasia: weird, offbeat, and deeply removed from the mainstream. It won’t be for everyone, and those expecting a pure throwback to 70s kaiju showdowns may walk away disappointed by the film’s somewhat scattershot socio-political critiques and focus on human characters. But when the exposition is out of the way and the film is able to fully let its freak-flag fly, it’s intensely amusing. The only other possible downside is that this is a movie absolutely meant to be watched with a rowdy Fantasia crowd, which sadly can’t happen this year.

The Fantasia International Film Festival’s virtual event is composed of scheduled live screenings, panels, and workshops, taking place from August 20th to September 2nd, 2020. For more information, visit the Fantasia Film Festival website.

Written By

Beginning as a co-host on a Concordia TV film show before moving on to chief film nerd at Forgetthebox.net, Thomas is now bringing his knowledge of pop-culture nerdery to Sordid Cinema. Thomas is a Montrealer born and raised, and an avid consumer of all things pop-cultural and nerdy. While his first love is film, he has also been known to dabble in comics, videogames, television, anime and more. You can support his various works on his Patreon, at https://www.patreon.com/TomWatchesMovies You can also like the Tom Watches Movies Facebook page to see all his work on Goombastomp and elsewhere.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Facebook

Trending

Ghostface Killah Sets Long-Awaited Classic “Supreme Clientele” Sequel Release Date & It’s Closer Than You Think

Celebrity

Kendrick Lamar Beats Drake For Album Of The Year At The BET Awards

Celebrity

Andor Creator Tony Gilroy Doesn’t Consider A Key Rogue One Relationship Canon

Film

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Renewed for Fifth and Final Season

Film

Fat Joe accused of sex acts with minors in $20 million lawsuit filed by former hype man, rapper denies allegations

Celebrity

Simon Guobadia Reportedly Deported To Nigeria After Porsha Williams Drama

Celebrity

The Met’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ Reframes Ancient Tragedy Through the Lens of Propaganda

Film

Lil Wayne “Tha Carter VI” Review

Celebrity

Silento Breaks Silence After Getting Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison For Killing His Cousin

Celebrity

Tyler Perry Pops Out At Beyonce Show In Paris Amid Sexual Assault Lawsuit

Celebrity

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 Review: The Best Trek In Decades Doesn’t Miss A Beat

Film

Mello Buckzz’s Boyfriend Shot-&-Killed During Her Mixtape Release Party

News

F1 Review: Brad Pitt’s Sports Drama Has Exciting Racing Scenes And A Bloated Runtime

Film

Trippie Redd Reportedly Arrested In Miami For Mysterious Reasons

Celebrity

Eminem’s Stalker Gets Lengthy Prison Sentence For Home Invasion

News

15 Best Military Movies Of All Time, Ranked

Film

Connect