Review by Darren Gaskell
When directionless Taka (Sho Mineo) receives a mysterious tape containing details as to the whereabouts of his hitherto missing archaeologist brother Mune (So Yamanaka) he sets off on a rescue mission, which also comes complete with side quest relating to the retrieval of a wooden box. Of course, the wooden box is of interest to other parties, specifically a group of human/cat hybrids with claws sharpened for pet owners and dealers of an unethical persuasion…
Mixing martial arts melodrama and mumblecore musings, writer/director Reiki Tsuno’s feature-length debut juggles moments of utter ridiculousness with surprisingly resonant emotional beats concerning the pull of family, be it flesh and blood or of the pet variety. Taka even finds his own dysfunctional group to assist in completing his assignment in the shape of perma-hungry, homeless Takezo (Yûya Matsuura) and the mysterious, lethal Ayana (Ayana – yes, Ayana is playing Ayana here).
Resembling a series of loosely bound vignettes rather than a solidly structured plot, Tsuno’s interest appears to lie in delivering low-budget oddness, with much of the necessary early exposition delivered via means of news bulletins on radio station 99.9 KITY. I never said it was a festival of subtlety. Indeed, feline references permeate the piece, whether it’s the anguished meows of Taka’s attackers as they’re dealt a blow or the appearance of products such as Purr Lager.
Action clichés aplenty are skewered, as Tsuno spins his own strange take on such staples as the overly fancy display of weaponry skills, which would normally serve as the preamble for a massive ruckus but here is played as an increasingly head-scratching running gag. The obligatory training montage is less oblique in its approach and falls back on the fact that both Taka and Takezo are, to put it mildly, crap at combat, but even when Mad Cats takes the more conventional route it still manages to raise a smile.
Tsuno clearly didn’t have a wealth of cash at his disposal but to his credit, it never feels cheap. The film is shot with confidence, it has a sharp look and its locations are carefully chosen for maximum impact. The fight sequences are rather good too, if a little short, slyly reducing their confrontations to limited numbers of protagonists at any one time as The Boss sends out her assassins in ones and twos depending on their choice of death-dealing implement.
Another budget saver is to have your cat cast played by humans, made so by the superpowers of a particularly strong brand of ancient catnip. Every member female of this kick-ass colony’s female ensemble is excellent, each individual and memorable, all regarding their enemies with that enigmatic look which the owner of many a domestic puss will recognise. They could kill you if they wanted to. They just might.
The combination of physical comedy, soul searching, slo-mo punch-ups and a smattering of set-ups which lean into horror may sound like genre hopping for the sake of it, but the switches in tone work because the atmosphere is consistently outlandish, allowing for the tale to take random twists and turns and rarely feeling the worse for it.
In terms of the comedic elements, there’s a lot of anguished shouting and screaming from Sho Mineo as Taka reacts to yet another failing of his in the hero department. Admittedly it’s amusing the first few times but it happens so much more than a few times and ultimately I found it grating. Going some way to balance that out is the no nonsense, all action Ayana, showing the men how it’s done and saving their hides on numerous occasions. As the purposely annoying one of the troika, Matsuura fares better because Takezo is a better written, more rounded character with the bulk of the funniest lines in the movie, which lends itself to a more detailed performance.
Mad Cats is a peculiar movie than doesn’t attempt to be more peculiar than it already is. The very premise comes with an in-built level of weirdness and there’s no need to draw any further attention to that or to provide too much in the way of explanation as to just what is happening and why. Laughs and chills often run side by side and for every surprisingly nasty act of violence there’s usually a pratfall and, at one point, a fart joke, to restore the balance.
It’s possible that you may reach the end credits of this film and think “What the hell did I just watch?” but that sums up Mad Cats’ manifesto perfectly. Throwing different styles into the mix with abandon and worrying little about how jarring that could be is an admirably bold choice, but it pays off handsomely in this case, even if there’s an almost inevitable flat spot in the run-up to the final act that needs a couple of minutes trimming from it.
Closing with the text “For all the innocent lives, past and future, taken away by selfish devils”, you’d think the preceding eighty-odd minutes would be sombre and reflective, but the occasional glimpse into the abyss is far outweighed by a joyful, unapologetically chaotic whirlwind of an adventure spawned by an Egyptian cat goddess. By and large, it was just my saucer of cream.
Mad Cats (2023) featured as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival.