January 15, 2001 CURRENT RUMBLE The Wild Toys of the Films of Kinji Fukasaku Joe Buck & Yappy Twiki 1.15.01 I am flipping through the L.A. Weekly looking for The American Cinematheque's showing of Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World when I see that they are doing an entire retrospective on the films of Kinji Fukasaku. Your Buckster puts 2 and 2 together and realizes that this man was in a way responsible for some of the oddest toys to come out of Japan. It's 1978 and the world is swept up by Star Wars fever. Never the one to not jump on a bandwagon, Toei whipped up "Uchu Kara No Messeji" (Message From Space), a space epic battle together starring the um, (dashing? young?) star Vic Morrow. No Harrison Ford for them. No sir. Twiki: Dammit, Buck! As bad as it might be, the film had the incomparable avatar of machismo, SONNY CHIBA, in a supporting role! As "Prince Hans" no less. And the man broke a leg while performing a stunt for the movie! Whatta baddass! Biddi-biddi-Buck! Well to tie into this gift to celluloid, Popy whipped up an entire series of Popinica diecasts. The "cute" robot "Tonto", various ships, including one of the most amazing things that Popy had ever done-the "Preastar" Space Galleon. Folks. It is a space galleon. With a fake wooden stand and transparent plastic sails. Twiki: That's Marc Raley's Preastar, by the way. Check out his collection if you haven't already. We're too lazy to dig up a picture of Tonto, so buy that Green Arrow Graffiti #13 (by that totem of testosterone, Koji Igarashi) already! We can't simply scan his pictures without incurring Igarashi-sensei's wrath-- ISBN # 4-7663-3207-5, kids. Biddi-biddi-Buck! Skip forward to last year. Medicom releases a set called "Battle Royale," and I just pass it off. I shouldn't have. I should have been REALLY disturbed. Making the Blair Witch Project look like a children's flick, "Battle Royale" stars "Beat" Takeshi Kitano as a high school teacher who takes his ninth grade class to an uninhabited island, and forces his students to kill one another. The survivor goes home. Oy. The trailer is disturbing, the plot is disturbing, it is ultra violent. People have called it pointless, unredemptive, and that is has sickeningly realistic violence. Twiki: If you've never heard of the frighteningly uber-manly auteur, "Beat" Takeshi, run to your video store and rent Sono Otoko Kyobo Ni Tsuki (Violent Cop), Sonatine, and Hana-bi (Fireworks) right now. Or he'll punch you in the nose. Trust me, he knows where you live. Biddi-biddi-Buck! And Medicom goes and makes Kubricks. Just look at em. The figures have their weapon of choice, a collar that goes around their necks so that Takeshi can kill them at any time if they break a rule, and little stickers for the wounds that they get. Apparently you can actually play a game based on the movie with these sick puppies. L.A. gets it as a part of this festival. No word on if the movie will ever, or should ever, be released in the U.S. Twiki: As luck would have it, the tenacious LarryB and I happened upon the special Kubrick Battle Royale Survival Program set yesterday. All three Kubricks come enclosed in an oversized ziploc pouch, along with a fold-out map and a penlight. Those last three items are all those wacky kids in the film get to use in their fun game of life and death. Now you, too, can recreate the "Battle Royale" with your closest friends! Fun for the whole family! Biddi-biddi-Buck! Fukasaku will apparently be in attendance for the opening weekend of his retrospective, and I am tempted to ask what the hell he is thinking... Twiki: And everyone better check out Fukasaku's fantabulously mod 1968 transvestite crime caper, Kurotokage (Black Lizard), too! It's got perhaps the strangest cameo ever by seething alpha-male Yukio Mishima! Biddi-biddi-Buck!  RUMBLE INDEX  |  CURRENT RUMBLE