At the centre of the film is the iconic figure of Guitar Wolf (ably supported by his band members Drum Wolf and Bass Wolf). Guitar is unutterably cool, hails from the world of Japanese punk and rockabilly, and comes complete with sunglasses, sub-Elvis pompadour, black leather jacket, and "don't give a -" attitude. This is his second big screen appearance since McCarthy's Sore Losers of a few years back that, by all accounts, was a similar sort of project (tag-line: "They wanted meat so they ate the flower children!"). How you enjoy the present film depends on appreciating Guitar's somewhat hand-me down camp persona, and your enjoyment of the cheap zombie genre. Romero's trilogy hangs heavily over things, and at one point the characters even discuss who has seen Night Of The Living Dead (1968) - ironically, few here have. There are other influences too: Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996) during the initial flying saucer scenes, or the John Woo-like stand off in the manager's office. The meteor-led incursion recalls such 1950s' invasion titles as Arnold's It Came From Outer Space (1953). That aliens would want to bring the dead back to life as part of their plans can be seen in Wood's legendary Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), though the charm of that film is missing here.

The action takes place in the nowhere-place of Asahi-Cho, the scene of a meteor shower and shortly, we discover, to be the focus of an alien invasion. Ace is the desperate-to-be-cool character, also in black leather, glasses and rockabilly pompadour, who plans to see his hero Guitar Wolf at the local dive (where he duly performs using microphones which shoot fire). After the show there's a falling out between Guitar and the club owner who, despite having grown up with the singer, claims "Rock and Roll is dead!" Given the heavy investment in the style by all concerned it's clearly a mistaken announcement. It duly provokes a shoot out between Guitar and the owner, in which Ace plays a crucial part in helping his hero. The owner loses two fingers for his pains and vows revenge. Meanwhile Guitar makes Ace his "rock and roll blood brother" and gives him a whistle, to be blown when he is danger. Given that the town is due to be overrun by murderous zombies this is no small blessing, as one can imagine.

Meanwhile other strange characters are introduced: a female arms dealer, most comfortable in what looks like a plaid leotard; a bickering trio in a car, (one of which, Masao, goes odd and tries a blundering gas station robbery); the girl Tobio, dumped by the road after being called a 'pervert' by an unknown driver. She then strikes up a close friendship with Ace. All of these characters act strangely, and it is clear that the meteorite storm is affecting them, just as it unaccountably brings the dead back to life to roam the streets and eat people. Soon Ace discovers a grisly roadside dismemberment and has to prove his courage. Tobio (who has a remarkable secret of her own) is under threat from the zombies, and the plaid babe has to break into a stock of weapons to defend herself. All this while Guitar Wolf needs to first help Ace, fight off the angry club owner, then save the world...

Such trivial plotting and mediocre acting provide window dressing to the film's main elements: Guitar Wolf's rockabilly insouciance in the face of danger, and Ace's own rite of passage; the stumbling flesh-eaters appearing with predictable regularity, and the drug-crazed club owner, (now dressed in hot pants), hunting the singer. The result is, frankly, an entirely inconsequential mishmash, although such a criticism is irrelevant to those who would savour the throwaway lunacy of it all. Takeuchi's first time direction is mundane at best, exemplified in the couple of times he clumsily attempts cross cutting, such as between Ace battling the zombies and Tobio's calm walkabout in her trainers, which seem misplaced and unnecessary. Cross cutting to increase suspense, or to effectively showcase parallel action, is beyond a director whose visual reticence indeed often works against Guitar's screen impact. More unforgivably, while the bargain basement flying saucer effects and gory visuals of disembowelment are well done, there is no feeling of real horror in the picture, merely some vaguely tense scenes as Ace and others are surrounded. The gathering claustrophobia and social comment found in Romero's originals are entirely absent. The flourish and demonstration of a butterfly-knife at one point (a scene which would have undoubtedly been cut a few years back by the squeamish BBFC) promises some tough street fighting, which never materialises - a shame as it would have promised more immediacy and danger than we ever see here. One or two moments are effective: the sad zombie that Toschi becomes, for instance (played by a peculiarly Buscemi-like Japanese actor), wondering the streets before being reunited with his zombie girlfriend. Or Guitar's leap from an exploding room in a three-storey building, to land unscathed and then casually retune his instrument. Such wit is hard to find in a film playing like an off the wall drive-in movie and, for those not attuned, can drag terribly.

At the end of the film Guitar dispatches an alien mothership with his sword, drawn from his guitar - a striking action that, in a single move, encapsulates both the strengths and weakness of a crazy film. Standing on the roof, blade erect to slice open the metal belly, Guitar is cool without being quite convincing, the plot's climax barmy without being brilliant. If we can accept Guitar's keen edge hacking through a low flying spacecraft without laughing the wrong way, then no doubt we will accept and forgive much else seen too. Unfortunately this viewer had his doubts. In Ace's words "At the end of the road you've gotta be grateful" and I had reason to agree with him.

At one "Guitar Wolf" concert, Ace happens to bust in on an altercation between "Guitar Wolf" and the night club manager over the manager's perverted nature towards women. Ace's surprise entrance gives "Guitar Wolf" just enough time to lay the smack down on the manager and his goons. Though ace is knocked out by a bodyguard, "Guitar Wolf" recognizes Ace for the true rocker that he is, and the lead singer makes him a blood brother for life.

Later, Ace happens to thwart yet another evil doers plan to rob a local gas station, thereby saving everyone inside, including his future love interest Tobio (Makoto Inamiya). Ace has to leave in a hurry if he is going to catch the next "Guitar Wolf" concert and bids Tobio farewell. Along the way, Ace comes across a minivan that has broken down on the side of the road. Upon inspecting the passangers, he notices that their remains are being feasted on by a pack of zombies! Ace escapes their cannibalistic clutches, but realizes that Tobio may be in the same predicament back at the gas station. Ace wants to go back and save her, but he certainly doesn't want to miss the concert either. Luckily for Tobio, an aparaition of the lead singer of "Guitar Wolf" appears before Ace and tells him to get his ass back to the gas station and save Tobio in the name of rock 'n' roll! Will Ace get to her in time, and even if he does, will he be able to do something about the impending attack of zombies that is spreading across the world?

REVIEW:
This movie is loads of cheesy fun, and anyone with a sweet tooth for horror movies certainly wouldn't be disappointed for checking it out. It isn't entirely a horror movie so much as it is an over-glorified rock video for the band "Guitar Wolf" (a lot of full length songs performed by the band are splashed throughout). In fact, I heard through the grapevine that this flick is the only major motion picture production director Tetsuro Takeuchi has ever laid his hands on. He is normally a music video director and simply took on "Wild Zero" as a favor to the band. Now folks, don't go quoting me on this last bit of information because I'm just not sure how valid it is. If I'm wrong, don't blame me!

I am not a very good judge of acting ability when it comes to foreign movie stars, but everything seems pretty decent as it comes from the mouths of the people on screen, with the exception of Makashi Endo's crazy and downright funny facial expressions. This is forgiven in the name of a good tickle to the funny bone though, and this movie offers plenty throughout. Every actor has great energy and charsima, and they all seem like they are having a lot of fun. I suppose that is all one can hope for when using a bunch on no name actor's to fill the role slots on a B-flick. They aren't gonna make completely believable characers for the most part, but if an actor seems bored or disinterested, it makes the situation that much worse.

Special effects are what are to be expected from a movie of this nature, but they certainly don't disappoint. The zombies are well designed and the gore oozes with fairly life-like realism. Aside from grainy video quality and substandard cinematography, everything looks pretty decent and well filmed overall.

Of course, this movie wouldn't be receiving a 3.5 star rating if it was as great as I've described it so far. Sadly, the pacing in this movie has issues. There are certain segments of the film, mainly the beginning and the end, that move along quite nicely, using no awkwardly long camera shots or periods of drawn out dialogue. The majority of the sequences between the opening and climax, however, heavily suffer these problems. I guess the wackiness of it all and the anticipation of what will happen next doesn't make it completely unbearable, but increasing a movies overall length with useless footage and story seems to be a common fallback for many directors

FINAL VERDICT:
I had a blast from start to finish with this movie. Even with the slow parts, the tempo was somewhat energetic and my interest was kept throughout. The nice thing about "Wild Zero" is that it has a little bit of something for everyone, from comedy and romance to horror and gore. Besides, a movie containing the song lyric "I've got a wallet on my ass with a license to rock 'n' roll!" is inarguably a must see regardless of its drawbacks.

COMMENTS
Haha, what a fun movie. I really enjoyed this film. There are many plot holes, but you forget all of them because of all the whacked out shit that's going on.

From what I gather aliens are taking over the world. They turn local townspeople into zombies and some rock n' rollers are left to fend off against them. It's a silly plot, but who needs a good plot when you got a bunch of zombies and loads of guns.

There's a mixture of sci-fi, comedy, horror, action, and yes, even romance! There's a funny scene where these two zombies come together and kiss. Haha, they were lovers in life and now lovers in death. This film reminded me of some of the Troma films we have in the US. I think if you're a fan of Troma you might enjoy this movie.

Other stuff I thought was cool was how they used computer effects to create the exploding zombie heads when someone would shoot them. It looked pretty sweet at first, but it gets a little old fast. Still cool to see though. There were good graphics in most of the film, but for the effect used in the climactic ending it just got a little silly and unrealistic.

For the zombies themselves - They reminded me of the ones from Dawn of the Dead. They were rather blue and incredibly slow. I think the director was inspired by such classic Romero films as Dawn and especially Night, because they even make reference to the film in this movie.

There's a lot of comedy in this that made it fun to watch. Kind of like with the comedy in Evil Dead 2. There's just so much weird shit going on in this movie, it's hard to name it all. Some of it reminded me of a comic book because some of the characters seemed to have some magical powers. They don't really explain anything, but I don't think an explanation was needed. I was surprised that in all the chaos they had time to throw in a little tranvestite romance in the mix *gags*

Anyway, I thought the directing by Tetsuro was unique and fast-paced. I really enjoyed this. Would have given the movie a higher rating, except I didn't really like how the zombie acted and looked and I thought the ending could have been a lot better.

OVERALL
Very cool Japanese flick. It's got it all - tits, zombies, rock n' roll, magic powers, alien takeovers, gore, comedy. If you're a fan of Troma or of zombies in general, check this film out!

Of course, there are notable exceptions to this, and "Wild Zero" is one of them. The first time I saw this movie I was alone, which may have been a mistake. Mathematically speaking, this is one case where your enjoyment of the movie is directly proportional to the number of people in the room with you.

For better or worse, Tetsuro Takeuchi set out to make the ultimate cult movie, culling elements from zombie movies ("Night Of The Living Dead"), 50s B-grade sci-fi movies ("Plan 9 From Outer Space"), and rock n' roll movies ("Rock N' Roll High Forever"). And it might be that his little formula worked a little too well for the film's own good. In the end "Wild Zero" is filled with lots of ambition, excess, and energy that gets a little ahead of itself at times.

Like any true rock n' roller, Ace (Endō) just wants to ride around the country on his motorcycle, following his favorite band (the legendary Guitar Wolf) around from show to show. He's a gawky rockabilly kid who tries too hard (like the movie), but he's got a heart of gold. When the promoter of Guitar Wolf's latest gig refuses to help them out anymore, claiming that rock n' roll is no longer cool, Ace bursts in screaming "Rock n' roll will never die!" He saves the band from the promoter's goons, and Guitar Wolf takes them all out.

To thank Ace, Guitar Wolf (Guitar Wolf's lead singer/guitarist, that is) becomes rock n' roll blood brothers with him, giving him a whistle in case he's ever in trouble. Then they set off in a flame-spitting muscle car and motorcycle (complete with wolf's head and bottle of whiskey on the handlebars). Ace continues on his merry way to the next gig.

He stops in a small town to get gas and inadvertently foils another crime, this one a robbery of the gas station. There he meets Tobio, a super-cute gal who was ditched by her last boyfriend on the roadside. Ace and Tobio hit it off big time in an "awww shucks" sort of way, but Ace must follow the call of the rock and heads off to the next Guitar Wolf gig.

Meanwhile, strange things are afoot at the town, which is apparently deserted. Flying saucers are seen in the sky, a meteor has fallen somewhere nearby, and zombies fill the roads (naturally). This is unfortunate for a group of yakuza on their way to visit an arms dealer, as well as another trio of punks (2 of them, Toshi and Hanako, are the single most annoying couple in any movie I've seen in a long time). All have rather disgusting run-ins with the zombies, who stagger around the countryside like drunks at 3:00 in the morning.

Ace escapes from the zombies and fights to make it back to save Tobio. Meanwhile, the promoter (who wears the shortest, tightest pairs of shorts in cinematic history) is hot on Guitar Wolf's trail to get revenge. Ace makes it back to Tobio, and the two run off the hide from the zombies. Of course, it's not like these zombies could do anything considering how slow and clumsy they are. Finally safe, Ace confesses his love for Tobio, who reveals that she isn't exactly like the other girls. Horrified, Ace runs away. Ashamed that he couldn't truly love Tobio, he turns into a one-man zombie wrecking crew.

Guitar Wolf (the band) have also realized something's up. After picking up the Toshi and Hanako, they head off in search of Ace (remember, they're rock n' roll blood brothers). They hook up with the arms dealer after saving her from a mob of zombies (dispatched by magical, glowing guitar picks that Guitar Wolf slings around like throwing stars) and make it back to her warehouse. Stocking up on weapons, Guitar Wolf prepares for a final confrontation with the zombies.

Let's just focus on Guitar Wolf and his bandmates (the other members are named Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf) for a minute. They drive vehicles that spit fire. They sing into microphones that spit fire like blowtorches. They spend half the movie taking out zombies and the other half striking ultra-cool poses and fixing their hair. To Guitar Wolf, it's no big thing to jump out of exploding building while yelling "ROCK N' ROLL!!!", land on the ground, and immediately retune his guitar. When things get too close for comfort, he just pulls a samurai sword out his guitar and starts slicing UFOs... in midair! Take that, "Six String Samurai"! And when Ace is down on his luck, Guitar Wolf gives him sage advice, which basically consists of, you guessed it, "ROCK N' ROLL!!!" Each your heart out, Dr. Phil!

In fact, watching Guitar Wolf is reason enough to buy this movie. Sure, they can't act one bit, and they may not even be able to really play their instruments, but when they're singing songs like "Violent Blood", who really cares? You don't want frickin' Eric Clapton on your side when you're facing down an army of the undead, do you? You want sketchy, leatherbound rock n' roll backing you up, and Guitar Wolf has enough of that to make Motley Crüe look like James Taylor.

When I first read about this movie, I got all giddy inside like a little schoolgirl. Here's a movie that, on paper has everything a movie needs to be, in a word, classic. It's got rock n' roll, zombies, rock n' roll, aliens, rock n' roll, romance, rock n' roll, and cheesy gore. Oh, and it also has a bit of rock n' roll.

So, if that's all true, why is this movie so painful at times? Really, you'll spend a good deal of the movie waiting for the next cool Guitar Wolf scene to arrive. You know that whenever those guys are onscreen, something good is bound to happen (as in exploding buildings and/or zombie heads). However, there's also a lot of filler, usually involving the shenanigans of Toshi and Hanako (arguing, running through the forest, screaming their heads off, etc.). All in all, they're about as useful as those red shirt-wearing fellows from "Star Trek".

And the zombies themselves are pretty lackluster. Unlike the gun-toting corpses in "Versus", these zombies prefer to stagger around (if they move at all) and groan a lot. And if you're unfortunate enough to be caught by them, the worst they'll do is paw you to death. After watching the zombies (all played by members of the local community theatre, I assume) and their ineptness, it gets a bit old.

From every technical standpoint, the movie is just this side of shoddy. The pacing is pretty bad, the effects even worse, and the editing almost always leave something to be desired. But that's not the point, is it? I'm sure much of that was intentional so as to capture the look and feel of the B movies that "Wild Zero" is so obviously an homage to. Still, I think that Takeuchi and Co. might have done too good a job, as the film does crumble at times underneath the weight of its own considerable excess.

Be that as it may, this can still be a really fun film (and I can just imagine the giggles that happened as Satoshi Takagi wrote the movie's "script"). Like "Dead Alive", "Evil Dead 2", "Army Of Darkness", "Plan 9 From Outer Space", or any MST3K-worthy film, this is definitely a party movie. As much as I love those movies, they really shine when you watch them with a group so that everyone's laughter and enjoyment feeds off each other.

While I still prefer "Versus" in the Japanese splatter genre, "Wild Zero" has a lot going for it, and it does get pretty far on its amateurish charm. Personally, I can't wait for my next movie marathon, so I can spring this on a bunch of my friends and watch their jaws hit the floor as the promoter shoots deathrays out his eyes. Or when Ace finds out Tobio's little secret. But most of all when Guitar Wolf teaches us all about rock n' roll... err, I mean...

ROCK N' ROLL!!!