Beetle the Horn King
Director: Minoru Kawasaki
Year: 2005
Rating: 4.5
Aka - Kabuto-O Beetle
They say that no matter your taste you
will find movies that satisfy it. But that also goes in the other direction
- that no matter what films you make, there is an audience out there somewhere
that will gravitate towards it. No matter how eccentric, silly and absurd.
There is an audience for it. Which gets me to Japanese director Minoru Kawasaki
who has been putting out films since 2004 and just released his latest last
year titled Monster Seafood Wars. If you have never heard of him - join the
rest of the world. But with his weird nonsensical parodies, he has a fan
base out there and his films have played in festivals that specialize in
bringing people something different and far out of the mainstream. One suspects
that he has a fanboy love for Mexican wrestling films, Kaiju films and Ultraman
and he took that fanboy love and made his own films independent of what the
world thinks.
His first film was The Calamari Wrestler
about a wrestler with a fatal disease who turns into a giant calamari and
continues to wrestle. Then there was Executive Koala about a koala with a
man's body or a man with a koala head who is just your basic salaryman or
maybe a serial killer. I vaguely recall seeing it but can't remember which.
The Crab Goalkeeper is about a giant crab hired to tend goal. The World Sinks
Except Japan is a counterpoint to the Japanese film Japan Sinks. In this case
only Japan is not sinking and refugees are coming to Japan. As best as I
recall most of it takes place in a bar where people from all over the world
talk. Then there is this film.
Where to I start? I will give it to you
straight as if this was just a normal film. You have to fill in the weirdness.
A wrestling match is taking place when it is interrupted by the EST - Extraterrestrial
Stylish Taboo - headed by Cockroachie. Cockroachie and the other Pests are
what seem to be giant insects but with men's heads who speak Japanese. They
start pushing people about and threatening to rule the world when they hear
a guitar strumming. They stop for this is the Beetle King in a sombrero and
poncho - he is the hero of our film and quickly puts an end to their troublemaking.
Later he gets knocked out and is brought home by a reporter - Yuri - where
Bill Robinson shows up to tell her his story. Robinson in real life was a
British wrestler who was especially popular in Japan and opened up mixed martial
arts training facilities - he passed away in 2014.
He once trained the Beetle King and his
friend Stag Beetle but Hitomi comes between them and they became enemies.
They end up in Peru at the Aztec ruins when an alien spaceship zaps them aboard
and injects insect DNA into them thus making them human insects with powers.
Why? In order to sell toy merchandise of them. All making sense so far? Other
stuff happens - the Beetle King gets run over flat but recuperates when they
bring him to the Mask Palace which is a paradise for people in masks - and
are served by lovely women not wearing masks. Eventually, he and Stag Beetle
have to fight - in a ring with a crowd - for the survival of the human race.
I may have missed some stuff - probably a lot of stuff - though at 66 minutes
it wasn't as long as it felt. Super low budget. Some people will be amused.
For the most part I was not.
