Don’t Stop Shooting!
I finally watched Shinichiro Ueda’s 2017 film One Cut of the Dead the other day. And what can I say? It is, as anyone who has seen it can attest, absolutely fantastic. The big problem is that I really shouldn’t reveal anything about it, not even the genre, because otherwise I strip away all the fun. Only this much: One Cut of the Dead opens in a run-down, abandoned warehouse where a small film crew is in the middle of shooting a zombie picture... But of course it’s not an ordinary warehouse. Rumor has it that military experiments were carried out here... on human beings! Then, as if from nowhere, real zombies suddenly appear and terrorize the crew. A bloody struggle for survival begins...
What sounds like off-the-shelf junk from the recycling bin turns into one of the most entertaining indie films in recent years, half an hour in. Born in 1984, the same year as me, Shinichiro Ueda succeeds in playing with the audience’s expectations and, in one fell swoop, swings the mood of the entire film around so abruptly that I no longer know what’s up, what’s down, or where front and back even are. The shift isn’t just clever, it’s brazen, gleeful, and meticulously prepared. Choices that first read as mistakes reassemble into punch lines and reveals. From that point on, the movie’s confidence is unmistakable, and I watch, grinning, as it keeps tightening screws I didn’t realize were there.
One Cut of the Dead lives on the goofs, mishaps, and blunders during the shoot, and on the fact that, while watching those legendary thirty minutes for the first time, I was thinking exactly the things that later suddenly make sense. That some scenes run far too long, that the actors often stare off in arbitrary directions, that the action sometimes unfolds entirely outside the frame. I’d say that, deep down, One Cut of the Dead is a film about family – for reasons that, of course, only reveal themselves at the end. At the very least, Ueda’s work is full of surprises and grows not only funnier by the minute but also more coherent. If you want to escape the same old mush for nearly two hours, this zombie splatterfest has you covered. Don’t stop shooting!