Directed by Kaneko Fuminori and scripted by hot talent Kudo Kankuro, Kisarazu Cat’s Eye was Japan’s biggest indie hit of 2003, earning $14 million - not bad for a film based on a TV show with mediocre ratings. Its core audience was teenage fans of the show and star Okada Jun’ichi, but the film drew even non-fans with its extreme comedy, mad energy and whack inventiveness.
The set up is a staple of Japanese melodrama - the terminal cancer diagnosis. “Bussan” (Okada Jun’ichi), is told he has six months to live. Only twenty-one, Bussan is outraged: he has so much to live
for - the amateur baseball games he plays and the beers he guzzles with his
teammates, the devotion of the cute, spacey Mokko. In short, the utterly carefree life he leads in Kisarazu, a seaside town near Tokyo.
All five members of the Kisarazu Cat’s Eye team hang out at the Yakyukyu (Baseball Crazy) bar run by one of their number, the wild-haired Master. When Bussan returns to the bar with his sad news, not only Master, but two of his teamies - motor-mouthed Ani and pointy-haired goofball Utchi - are waiting.
Instead lamenting his fate, however, they are buzzing with energy. Hearing music, they pour out the door and spy another pal, the baby-faced Bambi riding a festival float, having been voted Mr. Kisarazu the second year in a row. Bussan is soon on it with him, shaking his booty as though he hasn’t a care in the world.
Did I say there was a story? That night boys end up in a new cabaret with
Korean hostesses. Bussan gets close to the prettiest (Yung Sohna), who speaks charmingly broken Japanese. A fateful encounter, as it turns out.
Did I say there was a story? Later, on the beach, the boys discover the corpse of Oji, a porky homeless guy they used to hang out with. Then Oji suddenly comes back to life! Delighted, they celebrate by giving him an house boat to live in. How did they raise the cash?
Did I say there was a story? A real-life rock group, Kishidan, asks the boys
to be their warm-up band for a charity concert they plan to hold in Kisarazu. Since the Kishidan guys look and act like a cartoonist’s idea of rightist punks, Bussan and the boys agree.
What does any of this have to cancer? Not much, but Kudo’s puzzle palace of a script and Kaneko’s serviceable direction begin to make something out of these and other slender plot threads. Also the film not only jams in most of the characters from the TV show, but a myriad of plot points, pop culture references - and even a couple of rave-up concert numbers. In short, it’s not a retread, but a radical departure that turns comedy into an extreme sport.
Mark Schilling