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"The Last Supper"
DVD
Any time you can look
on your shelves and find a movie from Psycho Films, it's really
got to give you pause.
Okay, I'm overstating.
"The Last Supper" actually comes to us from Saiko Films,
which is merely a sound-alike, but still, a pretty nifty one at
that.
And what Saiko Films
brings our way is a story that should be shockingly derivative--namely,
a cannibalistic doctor. Yes, I know, there's lots of eye-rolling
and catcalls that feature dear old Hannibal Lecter at this point
but don't let that scare you off. Yes, it's about a Japanese doctor
who turns cannibal. But this time around, it's a plastic surgeon!
And if you think about it, just for a minute, how he gets started
down the road to cannibalism will make so much sense it's unsettling,
even if it is pretty disgusting when you get to the end of it.
Yes, "disgusting"
will be the word of the day with "The Last Supper" in
your DVD player--lots of blood, squishy sounds, body parts, and
assorted gooshy whatnot flying around every few minutes features
heavily into the film.
You can't get around
it. It's a movie about a plastic surgeon turned cannibal. Of course
bodies are going to be rendered into cold cuts and flank steak
with all the precision of a doctor in his prime!
But--and this is where
"The Last Supper" parts company with all the things
that'll make your eyes roll--it's the how that will keep your
attention. Japanese movies have one fairly common element running
through them: patience. Subtlety. And coming from a movie about
cannibal doctors, subtlety is the last thing you'd expect to see.
And yet, it's here! Check out the cool nonchalance as our doctor
rebuffs a camera crew out at his house to film him for a talk
show. You never saw HANNIBAL do interviews! You never saw Hannibal
store his choice cuts mere feet from where he slept at night either,
but that's another crucial difference. Our Japanese Lecterite
has a development cycle, growing into cannibalism. Lecter, meanwhile,
just started carving faces one day and eating the results with
wild mushrooms because someone made fun of his aunt.
Even better, "The
Last Supper" trots out some of the old Wendigo parallels,
much the same way as "Ravenous", implying that by eating
people meat you gain their strength. The Japanese doctor here
goes from ham-handed dork getting shot down by the ladies and
a job given to him as a favor to master surgical chick-magnet
getting fawned over on Japanese television all because he was
into the pre-processed Soylent Green.
And it doesn't stop
there! People throughout the movie will come to crave our doctor's
special cuisine, wolfing it down at any opportunity, including
an absolutely brutal climax at the ending wedding scene. Nobody
knows exactly what it is they're eating, but everyone who gets
a piece loves it. And I mean LOVES it--they're oohing and aahing
and making various other noises of gastric bliss that suggest
nothing so much as they're having a giant meatgasm right in front
of us.
Speaking of which,
the ending is going to be an absolute hoot, packed to the gills
with surprises, one right after the next in a magnificent firecracker
string.
The special features,
meanwhile, are pretty slim, offering us Japanese and English audio--avoid
the English audio; the dub is just really awful. Stick with the
Japanese audio. Why? Because there will also be English subtitles,
and Spanish ones besides. Plus, we get trailers for "Kibakichi"
and "Kibakichi 2".
All in all, "The
Last Supper" is a sweet little Japanese entree fresh and
hot on our plates. Maybe not as good as some, but plenty filling,
and plenty satisfying.
The
Last Supper
***
DVD
Directed by Osamu Fukutani
Written by Osamu Fukutani
Starring Masaya Kato, Hibiki Takumi, Hitomi Miwa, Fumina Hara
Produced by Yuichi Onuma
NR
92 mins
2007
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