What is it about bad art that so fascinates us?
Good art, sure. There’s nothing all that unusual about loving good things. But bad art? Why are we drawn to disasters, to misbegotten passion projects, to epic career blunders, to incompetence and failure? Why do audiences flock to see objectively terrible dreck like The Room and Birdemic and elevate the misbegotten creators into cult icons? Perhaps a good documentary could explore this.
Well, Top Knot Detective is not here to do that. Because it is not a documentary. What it is here to do, and what it does very, very well is exploit that fascination to giant, giant, and I do mean giant laughs.
Top Knot Detective posits itself as the ‘true’ history of a bizarre Japanese TV show that enjoyed one season of massive success before vanishing from consciousness except as an obscure curiosity on Australian late night TV. The film lays out the sordid tale of drugs, booze, ego, and eventual death while interspersed with clips from the show.
That show stars Takashi Takamoto (Toshi Okuzaki), a deranged auteur cut from the Tommy Wiseau cloth. Takamoto is hired to create a TV show to help increase brand awareness of an all-consuming corporate entity, and the writer/director/actor/producer/editor/lunatic creates a sprawling medieval fantasy-action drama with himself as a wandering ronin solving crimes and battling monsters.
Like the best bad art, the show also functions as a dumping ground for all of the bizarre fetishes and twisted psychology of its creator, allowing him to work through some pretty major dysfunctions in a public space. And as the show’s popularity grows, Takamoto becomes more and more emboldened and things get wilder and stranger and much, much funnier.
That’s the thing I keep coming back to and the thing I want to stress: If you are at all affectionate for cultish or obscure cinema, Top Knot Detective will make you laugh like an absolute loon for the entire 90-something runtime, right up until the post-credits scene delivers maybe the single most specific joke in cinema history.
Specificity is this film’s secret weapon. From the crappy quality of the surviving footage of the show, to the way the talking heads are filmed and structured, to all the little touches of the world and the culture surrounding the show, Top Knot Detective is clearly the work of people who have inhaled this sort of thing for years and years and leak with affection and enthusiasm for their subject. Every blip of shoddy VHS footage only furthers the illusion of what they’ve built, and unassuming audiences may find themselves watching for a long time before catching on to the joke of what they’re seeing.
The cast certainly helps in that as well. Everyone involved is keyed to the right tone and know to play things completely straight, which only heightens the absurdity and the laughs. This is especially important for those actors playing both the ‘real world’ talking heads and interviews and also their ‘fictional’ alter egos. One of the hardest things for good actors to do is play bad actors, but everyone here toes the line just right, letting you see the confused humans struggling to maintain their dignity while surrounded by balsa wood sets and cock monsters.
Oh yes, there will be cock monsters.
Okuzaki especially has to walk a very fine line, as his character is so over-the-top it could easily become a cartoon, and so repulsive that he could easily become unpleasant to watch. But Okuzaki does it with aplomb, playing Takamoto as both an unhinged monster but also a desperately lonely child frustrated that no one understands and appreciates him. It’s very strong work, and it lends extra teeth to some of the darker comic turns that the film takes as it progresses.
He also does a good job navigating the more sincere moments, which do come to the fore over time. Movies about/celebrating bad movies can often feel like they are tipping over into outright bullying (The Disaster Artist will have to thread a similar needle) and there are times when it seems like Top Knot Detective feels like it is a bit too mean, or a bit too enamored with “Aren’t the Japanese weird?” gags that got played out endlessly in 80’s comedies. But there is a sweetness to the spice, and that genuine affection for this subject matter and aesthetic continues to bleed through and keep things on an even keel.
Top Knot Detective may very well be funny only to the tiny subset of people who do things like go to film festivals to watch mockumentaries about fictional bad Japanese TV shows. But if this is a niche film, it attacks that niche without fear or apology. While mainstream audiences may well find themselves baffled, but if this movie is too your tastes than I can’t imagine not laughing uproariously from the opening set-up to that final, killer punchline.