The Calamari Wrestler

There haven’t been many wrestling movies that have been worth shouting about, aside from Kim Ji-wun’s The Foul King, at least not to my mind. It’s refreshing although slightly mental that we now have another to add to the list of crazy sports flicks worth pursuing.

The film opens on a wrestling bout between Koji Taguchi (Osamu Nishimura) and “Crush Volcano”. When Taguchi defeats his opponent with his special move (the “Torture Ring Strangler”) he becomes the new champion. Just as he raises the belt in the air to celebrate an unknown wrestler leaps into the ring and snatches it away from him. The crowd goes wild at the sight of none other than a giant squid who proceeds to grapple a tired Taguchi. By using the “Northern Light Suplex” the squid defeats Taguchi and becomes the talk of the town.

However, Taguchi’s fiancé Miyako (Kana Ishida) witnessed the match and found something strikingly familiar. Only one person had ever fought in the same manner as the Calamari – Kan-Ichi Iwata - and he disappeared many years ago. Meanwhile the president of the Cho-Nippon wrestling team is having a fit because he feels that this mysterious new participant will damage the sport and see Japan turned into a laughing stock. He tries to persuade the Calamari to throw his next match, but the squid refuses and promises to train even harder so that he can hold on to his championship. But there are other problems ahead of him: new challengers are about to see that his time in the ring is up, but like him these aren’t ordinary wrestlers.


What is there really to say about The Calamari Wrestler? It’s mad, that’s for sure. It’s cheap, tacky, melodramatic, clichéd; in fact it throws in just about every cliché in the book, replete with shock family twists and bizarre love triangles which are all played out so deadly serious. The only reason it escapes with some credibility is because at its heart is a bleedin’ huge squid who wishes to dominate the wrestling world. Add to that a giant octopus and a boxing shrimp (Squilla) and you have something that’s quite difficult to fathom in an ordinary world. Though who said Japan was ordinary? There’s definitely a unique quality about The Calamari Wrestler in that it presents itself so ludicrously you just have to sit back and take it for what it’s worth. It’s another in a long line of fantasy films that get away with sticking a man in a suit and have him pummelling things; hardly Godzilla, Ultra Man (incidentally Kawasaki is all too familiar with this Japanese hero) or Power Rangers mind you, but something altogether a whole lot more charming than many films or TV shows of its like. We don’t know why a squid is the emphasis here, and frankly it’s not worth worrying about, but this is one tentacle movie that you sit the whole family down to without having to worry too much.

So yes, the storyline is completely naff and whizzes by like Speed Racer; hardly any answers are given, people just willingly go along with things and that’s to be accepted. Likewise Miyako wholeheartedly accepts the fact that the “Calamari Wrestler” is her ex beau and can’t wait to be held in his tentacles, while envious parties dare to challenge him. You really have seen it all before (bar the giant squid, octopus and Squilla), so when I say don’t expect anything more than some humorous costumes and silly situations I mean it. Bearing that in mind you should have some fun.

Director Minoru Suzuki is so set in his ways here that it almost seems superfluous for him to go on about Japan’s wrestling tradition which has been decaying ever since its post-war glory days (or at least that is what the film describes). It’s not that what he says bears no relevance, but rather the film is just too absurd and wholly uninteresting when the squid isn’t onscreen; likewise its moments of symbolism do little else to lift it to any great height. Upon reflection there’s no real need to get overly critical about a film of this nature. For 85-minutes it passes the time and has some nice visual gags to boot.


The DVD

Pathfinder Home Entertainment has put out a nice little release for this film. It may not be overly extensive in the extras department but it’s a surprise to see anything at all really. For such a low price it’s a good package all round.

A/V

Presented in its original ratio of 1.85:1 and given anamorphic enhancement The Calamari Wrestler looks very impressive here. I believe the film was shot digitally, it certainly shows certain signs of it, yet for its low budget appearance a lot of effort has gone into to ensuring it has as much of a filmic look as possible. There’s some natural grain throughout and several scenes have been given slight tints in order to be more expressive; flesh tones range from being natural to showing different hues and this merely comes down to lighting effects, it has the true feeling of a comic come to life rather than a straight drama, which I suppose is the point with any “Kaiju” production. Still, colour looks good overall, with no signs of bleeding or anything unnatural that’s a cause of the authoring process. Black levels are very reliable, being deep and shadow detail is particularly strong. Contrast appears natural and the only real hindrances are bouts of Edge Enhancement, coupled with this being interlaced.

For sound we get an original 2.0 Japanese track. There’s nothing here worth complaining about; dialogue comes across at a good audible level and remains clear, while the wrestling scenes are effective thanks to some decent directional usage.
English subtitles are optional and these are problem free.

Extras

A making of featurette heads up the main extras here. Running for 22.13 it offers some fun behind the scenes shenanigans as the cast and crew get through the early stages of developing the costume. It follows through with the finished version as they take the squid out for test shots, before the actual filming begins. We also get to see some choreography and scene shoots and finally its move to festivals. Clearly everyone has fun, there’s a lot of laughter going on backstage and overall this is a pleasant addition. This does have English subtitles which are forced onto the print, but not every piece of dialogue is translated; we get less toward the end. Also the picture quality isn’t perfect but it’s acceptable. There’s plenty of noticeable compression but for an extra it’s no great deal.

A nice still gallery comes next, which comprises of 19 colour photographs followed by a selection of trailers. We have two main trailers and two TV spots. The general quality of these is poor however. A music video rounds up the disc.


Overall

The Calamari Wrestler is a stupid film, and that’s a compliment. No matter how lazy its script feels or how cheap it looks it has an undeniable charm as it sets out to do just one thing, and that’s to entertain in a manner that only the Japanese know how. It’s at least nice to see something so bizarre get picked up for international distribution, it’s not for everyone but for the curious it might just satisfy any strange tastes they have.