In late 2001 I came across a film that would forever change how I viewed international cinema and Japanese films in particular. At the time I was watching primarily mainstream US indies, 70’s/80’s horror and anime. But to keep up with the new stuff coming out in Japan, I was doing a lot of tape trading for fansubs and I didn’t venture too far into live action Japanese cinema yet. That was until a on a lot of Dragon Ball Z tapes, a guy I traded with a lot threw in a tape that was singularly one of the best double bills EVER committed to analog tape in my opinion – Ryuhei Kitamura’s Versus and Tetsuro Takeuchi’s Wild Zero. It was the kind of double bill that to this day has me looking back on that fateful afternoon hitting play and having my mind literally eviscerated by Japanese zombies, which before hitting play I didn’t even know existed.
Part of that bill, Wild Zero is a film that is as blood soaked and visceral, as it is charming and heartfelt.The film has alien invaders spreading a zombie virus on earth, and humanity’s only hope is a Japanese garage rock band Guitar Wolf, comprised of 3 cool as hell, leather clad rockers – Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf. When the trio isn’t slicking back their rockabilly hairdos, or playing gigs they are riding around in their souped up fire breathing hot rods and killing zombies, all while Guitar Wolf – their leader, yells out motivational English catch phrases. If that wasn’t bizarre enough the film features a rogues gallery of characters all using the chaos of the zombie apocalypse to their own benefit, while we follow our protagonist Ace, who’s also the biggest Guitar Wolf fan, who is just trying to make it through the night alive, while delivering one of the most pro-trans films in the zombie genre.
I bring this all up because after two decades Tetsuro Takeuchi and Guitar Wolf are teaming back up in the hopes of crowdfunding Wild Zero 2 via Kickstarter and of all sequels I would want to see after reading this synopsis I really hope this gets made:
In a world where chaos reigns supreme, the last rocker on Earth, Guitar Wolf, finds himself frozen by the hands of evil during a live performance. Subsequently, Earth faces three major catastrophes: nuclear warfare, the clash between AI and humanity, and a catastrophic meteorite impact, leading to the loss of much of civilization. The world devolves into a dystopian landscape, overrun by UFOs and swarming with zombies.
Fast forward a century into the future, where society has lost both rock ‘n’ roll and civilization. A young girl, descendant of the Wolf Ninjas, finds herself hunted by a tyrant who covets her immortal blood, a gift inherited from her ancestors. Desperate, she resurrects Guitar Wolf from his frozen slumber by blowing the dog whistle passed down from her mother, connecting them as fellow members of the Wolf clan.
If you’re not sold yet, they even have a trailer!
They are looking to raise $332,246 with roughly 37 days left as of writing with $24,979 raised so far. But that being the case some of the perks here are nothing short of amazing, I mean you have the more traditional digital copy of the film, a script/manga, a thank you in the credits. But when you get up to $333 you have the chance to have your photo used in the film and for a mere $66 more, $399 to be exact, you will be immortalized as a CGI zombie in the film and no doubt meet your demise rather horrifically. You can see the process below and boy does this look tempting.
I mean Kickstarter is all or nothing and that’s the only thing that scares me about this, is we might NOT get to see this and that would truly be a terrible thing.
