Tuesday, September 3, 2013

The Last Days of the World Review Don't Put Mayo There

Netflix managed to grab me and push my head deep into the TV with it's recent acquisition of "The Last Days of the World" , which I haven't heard about since it was shown at the New York Asian Film Festival in 2011.

spoilers
A pathetic average high school student in Japan lives he's day to day life until G-d visits him. G-d is a extremely tiny middle-aged Japanese man with a Kansai dialect who gives this student, Kanou a mission to simply stop "him", perhaps referring to the Antichrist, but this is never explained. Instead Kanou, beats the head in of the local bully and kidnaps the girl he's secretly liked to live out the end of the world doing what he wants.

Yes, were back to good ol' Japanese crazy films. There's some stabs at Japanese society and culture and the responsibilities that the society asks of you. On another hand there's a rape scene taking place in a blind woman's home with mayo as a contraceptive (not real thing) ending in humorous need to use the bathroom. Oh Japan, your movies will only be allowed on Netflix.

You'll laugh at how dumb it is and the literal defecating grin Kanou's rape victim has on her when she makes it to the toilet.

The film in no way tries to go as insane on the special effects or as cheap as Noboru Iguchi, maybe for talking G-d dog or too. We never find out if Kanou is really talking to G-d or is insane, he even starts questioning that himself.

Even though Kanou might be insane, there's still time for a road trip movie with his unwilling rape victim at his side he goes out to spend the rest of the time on Earth doing whatever he wants. Kanou doesn't go quite far, just to the previously mentioned blind women's house that ends in a porn parody three-way, the beach, a hotel an eccentric party filled with cute girls and some weirdos. Along his journey he meets a cross-dressing middle-aged man cosplayer who he saves, this gains him entry to the eccentric party. There he strolls around, talks about past love and gets shot in the hand.

What would you do if the world was ending? Kanou, takes what he wants and acts like a badass on his ride down from the Earth going bye-bye, if it actually is. He could be going insane and just ruined a few lives. For those into dark humor with some Japanese cultural moments. If the director makes it big later on, see this in the Criterion Collection.