The Calamari Wrestler

OK, make a list of all the things you've never seen a movie about.





Keep going...





Keep going...





OK, stop.





Now, that's quite an impressive list, but I bet you $5 it doesn't
include "A Pro-wrestling Squid"! Right? 'cause if you haven't seen
CALAMARI WRESTLER, there's no way you would ever conceive of CALAMARI
WRESTLER... unless you're writer/director Kawasaki Minoru, apparently!
Taguchi finally achieves his dream when he knocks out his opponent to
claim the Japan Pro Wrestling championship... but he barely has time to
hold up the belt when it is grasped from his handsby... a giant squid.
The squid then knocks him out cold and claims the championship for his
own. Who is this wrestling squid? Where did he come from? Should giant
squid be allowed to fight in the Japan Pro-Wrestling league? The
leaders of the industry think no, but Taguchi feels he must have a real
match with the squid or he'll never feel like a true champion, and the
squid needs a proper match so that he can truly claim the championship
himself. Will the public accept a cephalopod as a wrestler? CALAMARI
WRESTLER is basically a "boxing movie", and follows most of the
conventions of the genre... with the exception of species. There's also
a bit of a love triangle, and some social commentary on the state of
Japan in the modern age. It's shot on video and features some of the
worst acting ever committed to screen... but it's about a giant
wrestling squid! And that's just cool :-) It's very very silly indeed,
and really quite amusing - and even quite touching at times. The rubber
suits for the squid and some other characters who enter the plot are
pretty well done... though they never actually look like anything other
than a man in a rubber suit, which is part of their charm.




Cheap and cheerful, and something that could only have emerged from
Japan... not quite brilliant, but interesting enough to receive a
recommendation... especially if you're feeling that your cinematic diet
is starting to feel a bit bland :-)