Summary
Do you like your fish served in a steaming bowl of throwback kaiju comedy and self-referential monster mashing? Then this Fantasia Festival premiere might just be for you.
There’s an almost reverential attitude to the history of the kaiju film in Japan. Outside Toho’s offices in Tokyo, there’s even a bronzed statue of their most famous creation that is as reverential as any build for human historical figures.
Which has always made the genre prime for parody. MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS (三大怪獣グルメ), or more literally Three Monsters Gourmet, is loosely based on an idea special effects legend Eiji Tsuburaya had prior to Godzilla. At its core, it’s about Yuta, a young man who accidentally drops his mixed seafood into the Sumida River. Soon a monster squid, a giant octopus and a colossal crab emerge to ravage the city.
Using a combination of ‘documentary’ interviews and flashback footage, director Minoru Kawasaki (Executive Koala, Earth Defense Widow) crafts something that is both a throwback tokusatsu film and a healthy skewering of their tropes. From over the top acting to rubber-costumed mascots with flailing arms, this is certainly less Godzilla and more Power Rangers.
Being ultra low-budget, much of the film plays out as a series of conversations in rooms. Many of these are conversations between Yuta, Commander Hibiki of the monster-fighting unit SMAT and the suave but ambitious tech advisor Shinjiro Hikoma. If you’re at all familiar with boardroom heavy Shin Godzilla, or the basic character tropes of an Evangelion for example, there’s some comedy of recognition here.
The film takes a baffling turn into a series of cooking shows when monster meat is discovered to be delicious. This drags on for far too long in the already slender running time, holding us back from the main event: giant monster smackdowns.
Yet when the monster battling starts, it’s just joyful. With arms wobbling like an inflatable figure outside a used car lot, the kaiju are gloriously low-tech in the grandest tradition of the genre’s history. Towering over faux cityscapes, rubber-faced reactions and random car flips connect the humans to the action clearly shot elsewhere.
“This is a jewellery box of monster meat.”
Without giving away too many of the film’s final secrets, which genuinely caused me to cheer into screen, suffice it to say the plan to trap the monsters in a stadium involves vinegar cannons, double-crossing and a hilarious giant robot. The plan’s name? Operation Seafood Bowl. Genius.
At one point in the film, a character reminds his companion “Don’t forget this is a state of emergency.” In the year 2020, this all felt a little real, but also a welcome distraction from an IRL crisis on a global scale. With references to everything from Space Amoeba to Ultraman, this is sure to please most giant monster fans and maybe make you a little hungry.
MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS is playing at Fantasia 2020.
2020 | Japan| DIRECTOR: Minoru Kawasaki | WRITER: Minoru Kawasaki, Masakazu Migita | CAST: Keisuke Ueda, Ayano Christie Yoshida | DISTRIBUTOR: Fantasia Festival 2020 (Canada) | RUNNING TIME: 84 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 August – 2 September 2020 (MIFF)
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