Review by Tristan Bishop
The advance word on Noboru Iguchi’s Live, which received its UK premiere at this year’s Abertoir Horror Festival, was that the scatalogically-obsessed manchild of Japanese cinema was toning it down a bit – unsurprising really, as it might prove a little difficult to top the excesses of Dead Sushi (2012) and Zombie Ass (2011). But fear not, because although the director has hit his mid-forties he’s not lost the manic energy and inventiveness that mark the best of his work. Rather, he’s channeling it into more conventional genre forms, although Live is still a long way from the approach of your standard Hollywood blockbuster (and not just in budget terms).
Live begins with a down-on-his-luck young man named Naoto (played by Yuki Yamada), who, having left his single mother and home, and unable to keep down a job, receives a phone call from a mysterious stranger, who has delivered him a box containing a smartphone and a copy of a novel called ‘Live’. The stranger then tells him that he has kidnapped Naoto’s mother and will inject her with lethal poison if he does not co-operate, sending video footage to the smartphone to back up his claims.
It turns out that the mysterious voice, as mysterious voices often seem to, wants Naoto to play a game – a game which is a re-enactment of the one featured in the novel. Directed to go to a sports centre, he soon discovers several other people carrying smartphones and copies of the novel, all of whom have had a loved one kidnapped and are being forced to play along – mostly because they have the same (or similar) names to characters in the book. The game will mirror the plot of the book, which will see the ‘contestants’ competing in a marathon against each other, with difficulties to overcome and riddles to solve. Of course, those who disobey will have a loved one killed.
Changing into some unflattering yellow running costumes, the contestants soon attract unwanted attention from both police (via a couple of outrageous early accidental deaths) and people posting their pictures and videos on social media, as they race to reach a 30-storey building called ‘Hell’s Tower’. En route, Naoto teams up with friendly 17-year old Shinsuki (Yuki Morinaga), and Rumi (Ito Ono), who the others deem a ‘weird chick’, whilst other characters include a highly-strung sporty type who will not lose at any cost, and the amazing Asami (much loved by us at Brutal As Hell), playing against type as dowdy and gawky, but obviously slightly unhinged. So far that sounds (bar the couple of OTT gore sequences) like pretty light fare for Iguchi, but once the characters reach Hell’s Tower, things switch up pretty quickly. As Rumi says, referencing the novel Live, “I’ve read a lot, and I’ve read this. Things are about to get crazy”. And that’s exactly what things do get – highlights include the scantily-clad roller-skating female assassin ‘Crossbow Angel’, rooftop chainsaw fighting, and, in a wonderful moment of geek reference, a weaponised motorcycle (“Just like Megaforce!” a character exclaims).
Live comes across as both a send-up of, and cash-in on, such ‘game of death’ blockbusters as Battle Royale (2000), The Hunger Games (2012), and even Bruce Lee’s original and unfinished Game Of Death (1973) – check out the yellow running gear for a nod to Bruce, and the way that the names and ages of the characters flash up on the screen (along with a dramatic musical flourish) for Kinji Fukasaku’s masterwork. What makes it intriguing is that the novel in the film is an actual book, and Iguchi’s film is a meta-adaptation of it. There’s not much information about the novel itself in English, so I wasn’t able to ascertain quite how closely the film follows the plot, but it seems that Iguchi is commenting on the nature of adaptation itself – a bit like Charlie Kaufman but with more fighting girls and shots of bottoms. Because yes, let’s not forget this is an Iguchi film, so his baser instincts take precedence over his intellectual ones, although he’s nothing if not self-aware – at one point the camera focusses slightly too long on a girl’s bosom, which is then mirrored by the next scene doing the same with a ripped male torso. Thankfully this makes for an entertaining watch and the blood & bums stuff manage to balance quite nicely with the loftier aims, preventing the film from becoming too self-indulgent on either side.
It’s not perfect however – the budget is obviously painfully low, and most of the gore is CGI stuff (although pretty good of its type), and the film loses the way in the final 20 minutes, shifting to a darker dramatic, revelatory tone which doesn’t really work after the slow build and release that comes before it. Also, Asami doesn’t get a great deal to do for most of the running time, although she does eventually get to steal the show in what is probably the film’s stand-out scene. Overall, however, Live is a hell of a good time, and points towards an interesting future for Iguchi.