Blood! Guts! Zombies! Boobs! What more do you need?
What They Say:
Get ready for a wild, insane, and incredibly over-the-top zombie fest ever as all three feature films in the infamous “Nihombie” saga come together in a single collection that could raise the dead – if they weren’t already running around Japan like frat boys at an all-you-can-drink kegger!
The action begins with Attack Girls’ Swim Team vs The Undead – when their school and the teachers start eating each other, having rabid sex, and juggling, it’s up to Aki and her new-found allies on the girls’ swim team to send these monsters to the shower scenes! Then, a routine training mission for the Japanese Self-Defense Force becomes a blood soaked battle for survival when radiation from a crashed flying saucer causes flesh eating zombies to burst from the earth like weeds across the rural countryside in Zombie Self-Defense Force! Finally, one seriously ticked off Japanese schoolgirl cuts a path of revenge through the zombie hordes after a master warrior’s arm is grafted to her body in Zombie Hunter Rika!
The Review:
Audio:
The only language option for any of the movies on this release is the Japanese 2.0 track. Normally I might be mad at the lack of a dub, but I prefer subtitles for live action stuff, so it didn’t bother me here at all. While a 5.1 mix is always appreciated, I can understand the lack of it here, and frankly, I’m not entirely sure what it would have added. We’re not exactly talking high cinema here, so the mix is more than fine for our purposes.
Video:
The video for this release is also fine. There were no technical issues with the transfer on any of the movies; the blood and gore all show up in glorious Technicolor. And really, that’s the important part, right?
Packaging:
The packaging for this triple feature is minimal, which I am fine with. All three movies come in a single amaray case with an insert for two of the discs. The front cover has shortened versions of the covers of all three movies, while the back graces us with some pictures of the sort so things we’ll see in the movies (namely blood, guts, and skin), as well as a summary of the movies. It’s a basic package, but it does its job.
Menu:
Each of the movies has a basic splash page; literally a splash page: they look like a blood splatter with just the selections and movie title. But all three discs are programmed to just start the feature without hitting the menu. And considering there are no extras on any of the discs, nor any language options, the menus may as well be non-existent (and it might be for Attack Girls Swim Team vs. the Undead. I certainly couldn’t find one).
Extras:
There are no extras on this release.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This release has three Japanese, exploitation zombie movies: Zombie Self-Defense Force, Attack Girls Swim Team vs. the Undead, and Zombie Hunter Rika. Being exploitation films, you can pretty much guess what you are going to get: blood, gore, and naked girls. Aside from there not being any nudity in Zombie Self-Defense Force, that’s exactly what we have here.
In Zombie Self-Defense Force, three separate sets of people are all out in the woods and witness a UFO crash. While they initially all write it off as a trick of their eyes, soon they are being attacked by zombies! The survivors of the three groups—a Yakuza, a pop-idol, and members of the Japanese Self-Defense Force—have to put aside their differences if they hope to survive.
Attack Girls Swim Team vs. the Undead tells the story of Aki, a shy new transfer student to a school that is about to have a zombie outbreak. Aki quickly becomes friends with Sayaka, a member of the swim team, and the only person to stick up for Aki when things turn bad. When it becomes clear that members of the swim team are the only people not affected by the virus turning people to zombies, it is up to Aki to find out why and figure out how to stop the horde.
Zombie Hunter Rika tells the story of Rika, a high school student with a penchant for cutting class. As these things happen, she cuts school on the same day as the zombie apocalypse. When a zombie bites into her arm, it appears that she might turn into one, but her surgeon grandfather knows what to do: he cuts off the arm before the virus can spread to the rest of her body and grafts a new one onto it. As luck would have it, the arm grafted on used to belong to a legendary zombie hunter, and his abilities transfer to Rika. Now armed with her new lethal abilities, Rika befriends a zombie with a conscience who tells her of a demon that is controlling the horde. If she can defeat him, the outbreak will end.
There’s really not a whole lot to say about any of these movies. As exploitation films, they are not exactly striving for high cinema. The stories are hackneyed, the gore is ridiculous, and many of the scenes are purely setup to give us a reason to see cute, naked girls. There’s not a lot to analyze here, really.
And as exploitation films, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I found Attack Girls Swim Team vs. the Undead to be interminable. For at least the last hour or so, I kept looking at the clock to see how much time was left. The story (such as it is) didn’t interest me, the built in silliness wasn’t the good kind of silly, and the attempts at seriousness were pathetic. Zombie Self-Defense Force, though, was a lot of fun. This one just took the silly baton and ran with it, not attempting to be serious for even a moment. It’s a movie that got the joke from the get go.
Zombie Hunter Rika was my favorite of the three, though. It is a rare case of actually trying to tell a decent story amidst the silliness and doing it well. Sure, the set-pieces are completely ridiculous, but the story within the setup is pretty good. Unlike Attack Girls where the seriousness just dragged things down, I found the seriousness in Zombie Hunter Rika to enhance the overall experience. It made the silliness more entertaining because it was actual relief from the drama.
In Summary:
Nihombie: The Complete Japanese Zombie Trilogy is hit-or-miss. I loved Zombie Hunter Rika, but couldn’t wait for Attack Girls Swim Team vs. the Undead to End. Zombie Self-Defence Force was a fun in-between. But for this price, two-out-of-three is perfectly acceptable, so if you love B-Japanese movies, then add this to your shopping cart now. Recommended.
Features:
Spoken Languages: Japanese, English subtitles.
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: A
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: N/A
Readers’ Rating: [rating]
Released By: Switchblade Pictures
Release Date: November 8th, 2011
MSRP: $19.98
Running Time: 242 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Magnavox 37MF337B 37” LCD HDTV, Sony PS3 w/HDMI Connection, Durabrand HT3916 5.1 Surround Sound System
