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Released by: Well Go USA
Released on: 3/30/2010
Director: Takuji Kitamura
Cast:Yosuke Asari, Megumi Seki, Terutaka Hasegawa, Hayato Ichihara
Year: 2007
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The Movie:
Based on the novel by Japanese author Tatsuhiko Takimoto (a best seller according to the back copy on the packaging for this DVD), Takuji Kitamura's Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge follows a young man named Yosuke who has lost all of his ambition since his best friend died not all that long ago. He sort of wanders around town wondering what to do with himself without much of a purpose at all until late one fateful night he meets a foxy young lady and through her finds a renewed interest in living. He falls for her quickly, this Eri, but soon learns that there's more to her than just her good looks. Eri has a tendency to be prepared for all manner of violent situations, which in and of itself maybe isn't a bad quality in a girlfriend, but it certainly is an unusual one. They find in one another kindred spirits, as Yosuke grieves over his friend and she over the recent loss of her parents, killed in an unfortunate run-in with a drunk driver.
Yosuke soon figures out why she's always ready for action when a chainsaw wielding space alien shows up and tries to murder her. Evidently this isn't the first time that something like this has happened, as Eri's skills with a katana demonstrate. While the two try and figure out how to best get rid of this problem, they bond over their losses and become a closer, tighter knit couple.
Briskly paced and nicely shot, Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge is a bizarre amalgamation of different genres with an emphasis on action and, oddly enough, romantic comedy. The chainsaw wielding foe that Eri and Yosuke find themselves up against may be a formidable opponent - he is, after all, wielding a chainsaw and those can be dangerous! - but despite some ominous entrance music and a dark lighting scheme, he's not particularly scary. Takimoto does a great job of framing him whenever he appears on screen, however, and believe it or not you can see the influence of Sergio Leone's westerns in how the showdown sequences in this film are shot.
The movie's stronger qualities are the cinematography and dark humor. The camera work is surprisingly elegant and frequently borders on pushing this picture from trash film to art film without ever quite going over that edge. Regardless, it's an attractive picture that makes up for its low budget with nice framing and angles. The dark humor comes primarily from the situations rather than the dialogue or the performances, both of which can be a bit wooden in spots. A perfect example being how a date to the aquarium turns into an unlikely square off against the couple's newly found mutual enemy. The film, a Nikkatsu production from 2007, turns out to be a fair bit more effective because of this than you'd probably except it to be, and if it's far from an undiscovered classic, it's definitely entertaining enough and quite competently put together.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, interlaced, is actually quite good. The colors look good (they often lean towards the cool side and use a lot of nice blue tones) and there aren't any edge enhancement issues to note. Detail is fine for the most part and blacks are deep and well defined. There aren't any obvious compression artifacts to note, though a bit of shimmering is present, most notably along diagonal lines.
A Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track is offered in the film's original Japanese language with subtitles available in English only. There's some good surround activity here during some of the fight scenes with some well placed effects helping out here and there. Dialogue is always pretty easy to follow and the levels are well balanced. The white subtitles are easy to read and free of any obvious typos.
The most substantial extra on the disc is a making of featurette (11:17) that features some decent behind the scenes footage and some basic talking head bits that discuss the film. A trailer for the feature is included on the DVD, as are some spiffy menus, and a chapter selection option.
The Final Word:
Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge may not be as splat-tastic as some of the other screwball Japanese films that Well-Go have been quietly pumping out on DVD over the last year or so, but it's still pretty entertaining stuff. The transfer and audio are decent enough and if the release is a bit light on extras, well, at least the movie makes up for that with some stand out set pieces, some striking cinematography, and an entertaining story.