Fantasia 2016: Kaijyu Mono Review

Besides checking out two Takashi Miike films at Fantasia 2016 and watching a once-in-a-lifetime 35mm screening of Holy Flame of the Martial World from the Shaw Brothers, I also had the chance to experience one of the wackiest films presented at the festival, Kaiju Mono.

A hilarious spoof on the Kaiju genre directed by Minoru Kawasaki from a screenplay co-written by Takao Nakano and starring Saki Akai, Bin Furuya, and Shinzô Hotta, the film features epic miniature sets, which are just as impression as the ones in classic Godzilla films. Watching a toy tank get disintegrated into tiny pieces is still so damn fun to see. So I’m pretty sure Kaiju fans will definitely love all the effort put into this film. There’s tons of beautiful handcrafted details that get wrecked just for our viewing pleasure.

Best of all, the Japanese film features an epic three-round battle between a daikaiju (giant monster) named Mono and a muscular wrestler. Yes, a man fighting in a dragon costume is still pretty damn entertaining to see, especially one with impressive maneuvers. If you’re a WWE fanatic, then I’m pretty sure you’ll have an instant nerd boner for most of the fight scenes since it’s packed with familiar wrestling moves like the famous body slam, pile-driver, and airplane spin, just to name a small few.

Without trying to destroy the film for you, let’s just say a scientist found an interesting cellular formula to turn a geek assistant into an ultimate Kaiju killer. But success never comes from first attempts, and this film proves that.

The Verdict

Overall, Kaiju Mono is extremely ridiculous. It’s an outrageous film made for outrageous people who simply want to watch something as entertaining as the WWE, but with a much better story attached to the characters. If you aren’t really a fan of pro wrestling, then I highly doubt you’ll find this film as brilliant as Donald Trump.

Go check it out if anything in this review makes sense to you.