The Movie: Monster Seafood Wars / 三大怪獣グルメ
The Director: Minoru Kawasaki
The Cast: Keisuke Ueda, Ayano Yoshida Christie, Yûya Asato, Shojiro Yokoi, Reon Kurosaki, Gota Ihashi, Satoshi Kobayashi, Hikomaro, Paradise Yamamoto, Ukulele Eiji, Kei Grant, Asato Izumi
The Story: Yuta, a young master at the Tsukiji Fish Market, accidentally drops his meal of mixed seafood into the Sumida River. Some time afterwards a gigantic mutated squid monster arises from the depths and begins to wreak havoc upon an awe-stricken Tokyo.
The Review:
Monster Seafood Wars is a fun treat for anyone who loves the classic man in a rubber suit kaiju movies and cheesy special effects shows that Japan has been putting out for decades. There's no hiding what the movie is and the film makers do a great job of just having fun with it and not trying to reinvent the wheel or make it something it's not. The monsters, a crab, a squid, and an octopus, are all very colorful and they do a great job of smashing models of buildings and sometimes each others.
I will say that, even at a run time of less than 90 minutes, it still felt a little long as the story telling and interaction between characters was not that interesting and kind of redundant. I'm not expecting an award winning screenplay or high levels of artistry when it comes to the acting but just make it interesting for a few minutes and then get back to the silly monsters and cheesy special effects. One of the highlights of the movie is when a secret defense weapon is unveiled although I'm not going to describe it here because the reveal is part of the fun.
Monster Seafood Wars is an official selection of the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival.
To see more reviews, interviews, and festival coverage please go to: TwoOhSix at Fantasia 2020
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