Wild Zero (1999)

Director: Tetsuro Takeuchi

Screenplay: Satoshi Takagi

Cast: Seiji as himself / Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf as himself, Drum Wolf as himself, Masashi Endō as Ace, Kwancharu Shitichai as Tobio, Yōko Asada as the voice of Tobio, Nakajo Haruka as Yamazaki, Kazuko Yanaga as the voice of Yamazaki, Taneko as Hanako, Yoshiyuki Morishita as Toshi, Masao as Masao, Fusamori Tawaki as Mori, Murata Akihiko as Toshio, Shiro Namiki as Kondo

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Love has no borders, nationalities, or genders!

[Update: This review was written before the announcement of Wild Zero 2, which was revealed with a trailer in early 2024 to at least be a film intended to be finished and released.]

Dismissed in my youth, the older self sees how much of an idiot I was back then with my opinion on Wild Zero, though I see the aspect which likely caused such a negative reaction, that this is more of a film enjoy its wacky premise than fully executing it in an elaborate way. In Britain, you would have to have the Beatles make as weird a film like Magical Mystery Tour (1967) or Yellow Submarine (1968) because of their reputation, The Monkees in the United States making the ill-fated decision at the time to make Head (1968) to rise above their reputation as a manufactured band, and in this case, Guitar Wolf as a cult rock band having the advantage instead of the vibrant Japanese genre film industry between V-Cinema and straight-to-video productions to theatrical. That and your director Tetsuro Takeuchi being the man behind your music videos, as a figure you can trust, and shooting this film in Thailand¹.

This particular film, before they in general became a pop culture concept in the mainstream fully, is an early example of taking the legacy of George Romero's zombie films, and the concept of zombies, and returning to them even as here in a playful way of fans of the films. Already in a film like this you have characters bring up Night of the Living Dead (1968) and whether each one in the moment has seen it or wants to in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. There are probably too many characters in general in Wild Zero too, but the personality is there, set around what is actually closer to the premise of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), where aliens only seen in gold UFOS are resurrecting the dead, leaving a motley series of characters to cope with this transpiring. Ace (Masashi Endō) is our proxy, a Guitar Wolf fan who earns the respect of their titular leader Guitar Wolf (Seiji), and can literally whistle them from a town away if in danger. Guitar Wolf the band, starting in 1987, have been continuing over the decades, even after the tragically young passing of Bass Wolf ("Billy") in 2005 at only thirty eight², and here they live the rock n roll music ideal of being outlaw enough to shot people but with a personal morality; Seiji himself is the leader who can appear, figuratively as much as in the flesh ,as the Obi-Wan Kenobi to guide Ace to act as a rock hero should whilst Bass and Drum Wolf offer back up. Tobio (Kwancharu Shitichai, with Yōko Asada as their voice) is the female lead and potential love interest for Ace, and there are also two lovable thieves who botch a convenience store robbery when we met them, male and female, and a female arms dealer whose business with the yakuza was halted by the zombies. The later, standing out as a side character physically, especially shows a moral ambivalence that, even in this silly premise, emphasises figures that can be on the fringes of society, and even in her case more interested in survival and money, but not be the villainess. The villain in this world is a shady club owner, who wears wigs and rocks stylish sets of hot pants, who has a casting car seat for female singers, deals with drugs, and wants revenge on Guitar Wolf and their lead singer in particular for fingers shot off during a standoff.

On the type of urban/country landscape, the luminal space and the wasteland, I find compelling in Japanese pop culture between cult films and anime, even factoring in that this is actually Thailand standing in for its setting, you get a pot pourri of scenes between guitar picks as throwing weapons, matching grenade launchers with said hot pants to go out on a night of the town for revenge, and the equivalent of throwing the kitchen sink in a cult film with abrupt eye lasers. There is also the least expected story of love and overcoming bias to someone you could ever see appear in a cult film, as this has a trans female lead in Tobia. Some of how it is dealt with not aged well and clearly played in the same wackiness as when the digitally added golden UFOs are spliced over famous world landmarks, but in the end, it becomes actually beautiful in how it plays out and progressive with hindsight. Of all the films to deal with this subject, the least expect where someone like Ace has the horrible reaction he initially has, only to feel remorse, realise his true love for her, and have the Guitar Wolf of the band be the one who tells him love exists beyond boundaries and nationalities, is spectacular more now time has passed. It is not something you find in cinema dealt with enough decades after this film was released, let alone dealt with, in an applaudable way, in a film where the military female character has to put on a plaid one piece due to zombies ripping her cloths up out of spite. It is as punk rock in the truest sense as a major subplot just placed within this tale with a happy conclusion.

A lot of this message fits the entire ethos the film has in terms of rock n roll music. Ace's introduction in his room shows the history of music, including Western bands, on posters on his wall, and it goes back to the likes of Burst City (1982) by Gakuryū "Sogo" Ishii in films showing the underdogs in their own world, in these bands or their fans. This ethos is one you can even find in other mediums within Japanese pop culture, such as with Daisuke Ishiwatari, the mind behind the Guilty Gear video game franchise. A creator of a fighting game franchise which references rock and heavy metal even in character names, he has also went out of his way to point out a character he created named Bridget was always meant to be a transgender female character, regardless of fans' attitudes and previous translations of the games in the past³, and depicting characters who straddle moral ambivalences who are still heroic or just badasses.

That Wild Zero itself is merely playing at its premise with humour will be something that will annoy some, as I found when I was younger, but that in itself befits this ethos. Considering you have a soundtrack where inexplicably Bikini Kill's Rebel Girl blasts in out of nowhere, you should see Wild Zero as a film made by fans of this type of music and movie making what they think is cool, and managing to actually make it stand out in many great ways such as its moments of showing this music truly meaning its progressive, anti-authoritarian nature even when being goofy. Even a joke about lovers meeting again as zombies and having their own happy ending, played off as actually sweet as much as funny, fits this tone perfectly. The plot becomes less a priority, the zombies merely cannon fodder and your aliens only depicted as those UFOs, and instead it is the ride that stands out. Sadly its director Tetsuro Takeuchi, barring work with Guitar Wolf and musical groups, has not directed much in terms of cinema, whilst Wild Zero itself feels like it is ready for a proper revival as a cult film, i.e. not on old DVDs being the way to see this, and allowed to be seen in a pristine restoration with the possibility of learning how the film came to be. Even if learnt to be a fun improvisation throwing caution to the wind, it would be a pleasure in itself to learn how this ride came to be.

 

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1) Wild Zero review by Ken Eisner, published for Variety on November 5th 2000. [Some of this has aged of the past even if slight.]

2) Guitar Wolf Biography by Mark Deming for All Music.com.

3) Guilty Gear Creator Clarifies Once Again That, Yes, Bridget is Trans by Kenneth Shepard, published for Fanbyte on September 14th 2022.