Sunday, February 14, 2010

Executive Koala [Koara kachô] (2005)


I know.

But give it a shot anyway. It'll be well worth your while.

So. Mr. Tamura is a man-sized, bipedal Koala Bear working mid-management at a Tokyo pickle distribution company. His coworkers are all human beings, and no one seems to mind (or even notice) that he's a giant Koala bear. Life is good for Tamura--he's just closed a deal with a Korean kimchee distributor, and his devoted girlfriend may soon become his devoted fiance.

Even so, Tamura is a haunted bear--

--haunted by his previous wife's disappearance three years earlier. And any memories he might have of the events around her disappearance are buried deep in his subconscious--three years of therapy have yet to bring to light what actually happened.

And so, we have a mystery on our hands.

When the cops come calling, telling Tamura his girlfriend was found all hacked up, he's devastated. (And who wouldn't be?) Turns out he was the last person to see her alive. Just like he was last to see his wife before she disappeared. Well, as things move along, we find evidence that Tamura was physically abusing his wife and had even threatened to kill her. And now (maybe it's all the stress), Tamura is having blackouts again--just like the ones he had when his wife disappeared. Oh, and... people are dying.

Okay. That's the setup. And this movie is SO worth your 85 minutes. I mean, if it was "just" a slasher movie with a bear as antagonist, it would be great. But this is a slasher-crime-drama-spy-mind freak-musical-karate-comedic-love story. With a bear as both protagonist and antagonist. What's NOT to love here? This thing is all a crappy B-Movie fan could hope for.

Watch this movie. It deserves to be watched. And you deserve to watch it.

FIVE FURRY BRAINS