Deadball (2011)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

The first must-see film of the year.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

My favourite Japanese film is probably Love Exposure. It is fun, meaty and sexy and it is completely different. That is one of the reasons many people adore Japanese cinema: originality. It is exotic, while being entertaining. As you can imagine, it is no secret that as a man I spend money on fun. In this case, fun is women who are attractive and show off their beauty and body. Love Exposure has that. Deadball has that too and I love that part of it. However, in the story there is an element of horror and sadism that you would have to deal with so prepare for it. And of course, baseball, Japanese people and baseball! As long as Japan excites and tingles our senses and does so with this much creativity we will make sure Japanese cinema has a market on this side of the pond.

This is one of my hardest reviews so far in a way this movie is cool or the ideas are cool but everything is done bad. I like these kind of hilarious Asian movies that does everything crazy in them but this one failed in many ways. It is about a guy who have killed with his baseball killing move and will not do this move ever again. He is sent to prison for his actions and is forced to play on a baseball team of inmates. They have to play against another prison team of all female inmates. It is a game of bloody death. I would not call this a horror movie actually. It is just a comedy gore fest. I never like CGI in modern movies it's becoming very bad cinema for in my opinion but on these kind of Asian movies it is just cool sometimes. In this movie it did not work at all. It is a shame they did not focus more on the other inmates personalities because that would have made this movie very cool. They have hilarious personalities but you never get to know any of them. The acting is over the top bad but I don't think anyone who ever want to watch this and hoping for good acting or good story. As I said I like these kind of movies from Asia with gore and liters of blood in them but usually they are interesting to watch but this did nothing to get me interested or having much fun. Some scenes are very funny in a silly way though. Like one with a guy getting the baseball in his eye and it is stuck there for the rest of the movie. If this is the first movie you want to see from this kind of genre stay away I would recommend many others to begin with. Like Tokyo gore police (2008) starring the girl from Audition, Or maybe it is best to start with the legendary Battle Royal movie. This movie is in my opinion not worth watching but I guess if you seek these kind of movies like me I watch everything that looks interesting and a bit out of the normal cinema joy, you may like this one.

The Asian film market not only produces some of the most epic films in the industry, but also some of the strangest. The production king of low budget horror Sushi Typhoon has cornered the market with insane films like Yakuza Warrior and Mutant Girl Squad are at it again with their latest film Dead Ball bringing together two subjects that are synonymous with each other baseball and murder, right? Dead Ball follows the most feared juvenile delinquent in Japan who is sentenced to the Pterodactyl Juvenile Reformatory run by an insane headmistress who is the granddaughter of a World War II collaborator. After accidentally killing his father with a super-powered fast pitch he vowed to never play again, but is forced into a game for his life on the prison team in order to save himself and his cellmate from certain death, but this game may be more deadly than they imagined. If you have ever seen any of these types of films you know what to expect, but if not be warned these films are over the top insane, ridiculous and the exact reason they work. The story here is silly, but at first does seem to trying to keep grounded at first for about a second, but after that first pitch you know the exact kind of film you are going to get. Much like all these films, as it moves forward it just continues to get more and more over the top, but actually doesn't go near as far as some of the previous films from Sushi Typhoon. This one is actually a lot tamer than most of the others, but make no mistake it does not disappoint. The only issue here is the use of the CG blood which is the norm, but for some reason it came off a bit more cheesy than usual, hence loses some of the fun at times.Truth be told the only people watching these types of films are usually those that are already fans, so will no doubt love this one as well. It has all the gore, bizarre, goofy, violent fun that you want from this genre, but unlike some of the others this one leaves out much of the sexual aspects, with the exception of a couple of cavity search scenes you won't soon forget. In addition this release also features a spin off short film that adds to the overall fun taking a trip along with one of the more interesting characters.

This movie takes place in the same range like Shaolin Soccer. Deadball is to Baseball, what Shaolin Soccer is to soccer (or Captain Tsubasa why not!). There are plenty situation which contain a lot a blood and humor too ! Even some of them have a few "kind-of-erotic-hentai" scenes... I didn't put a maximal note because the music, specially the score (instrumental music) is really bad, it sounds like a old 70's TV show. At least, in Shaolin soccer, the score was wonderful like a John williams' music. I would add to this movie, that if you liked Battle Royale, then you will loves this movie too ! The Nazi-thing added in the story is a sort of great humor than only European people can get, but i hope other person will understand the comic situations, even the whole body-check ! !