Yes, from the land of Godzilla, anime, sushi bars and something about risings suns, comes pop culture wackiness with a twist of the sublime and a side order of punk-ass goodness, hold the pickles. Playing the hero of this underground centerpiece of cult class is Ace, a young Japanese lad with a penchant for the punk rock that's very popular with the kiddies these days. The group that lights his fire and hypnotizes his impresionable young mind the most? That would be Guitar Wolf. Refered to as "GW" for the remainder of this review (in keeping with the cool kids' method of abbreviating everything), Guitar Wolf is one of Japan's better known strikeforces in the war known as punk. Decked out in shades and leather jackets, Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf look like the long lost Asian half-brothers of U.S. punk icons The Ramones (especially with the gnarly bangs leader Guitar's sportin'), but their sound leans a little more toward Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols Academy of Anarchy and Fine Cookery... provided "cookery" is even a word... and that it even means what I think it means...

Following their night's performance, GW heads to the back room of the club to get their pay from the manager, who goes by the name of "Captain" for whatever sick gay sailor fantasy reason. Whether it's the junkie girl cuttin' nose sugar on his coffee table, the beaten up woman they see carried away from his room or the really creepy pair of white hot pants the fucker's wearin', Guitar proclaims the bastard a pervert, and the two draw their sidearms on each other! Meanwhile Ace, who we last saw "draining the dragon" in the men's room and working up the nerve to ask Cap for an audition, finds himself outside the room listening in on the confrontation. Still holding their guns at each other's heads, Captain starts to reminisce about when Guitar and friends first came to his club, wet-nosed and looking for a break. But, when he makes his own proclamation of Rock 'N' Roll's premature demise, Ace busts in, vowing R'N'R's immortality, only to be cold cocked by the Captain's slimy sidekick (who we'll call "Teneille" for added insult)! Guns go off, somebody's head explodes, Captain's 2 fingers lighter and Ace is struggling to retain consciousness on the floor. More concerned with fan loyalty than making their escape, Guitar makes a blood brothers pact with Ace for risking his ass for 'em, then tosses him a magic whistle with which to call them if he ever gets in trouble. Then it's time for GW to ride off into the night with screams of "ROCK 'N' ROLLLLLLLLL!" ( or "LOCK 'N' LOLLLLLLLL!" as the case may be) as 8 Fingered Cap fires his shotgun into the sky and Ace slips out the back to relative safety. Wow, pretty hectic first 15 minutes, eh?!

The next day, on the city limits of a town called Asahi-Cho (where strange "meteorites" have been calling home as of the opening sequence of our film), a man runs from the bushes, calling out "No way you fucking weirdo!" before hopping into his car and speeding off. The "fucking weirdo" in question? Apparently some chick who emerges from the same underbrush shortly after, picks her purse up from the road and begins the long walk to civilization. When she finds herself at a seemingly abandoned gas station near town and opts to sit a spell. While there she's joined by two guys in a moving van, a couple who only take time out of their bitching about their crappy lives to yell at each other, their mildly psychotic knife wielding friend Masao and of course, our hapless hero Ace, scootin' along on his motorbike and walking into his second dangerous situation of the last 20 minutes!

Ace knocks Masao into a bloody nose when he opens the front door on the would-be robber's face, causing Masao to run back to his friends' car in panic. The trio drives off and Ace is the hero once again, which means he's on a straight path to hookin' up with the "fucking weirdo" girl as his cinematic romantic interest. Meanwhile, three Yakuza weapons dealers are on their way to a big sale with some chick in a jeep outside of town, only to find the most unlikely of speed bumps in their way: the undead! Trust me, by the time this tale reaches it's finale, you'll be screaming, "This movie has everything!" from your roof top. Then, if you live in LA and you're of non-Caucasian pigmentation, you'll be promptly gunned down by police helicopters... Elsewhere, Masao cries.

Sho 'Nuff, Ace and his new girlfriend Tobio make nice while he steals some petrol from the unmanned gas station. As if it weren't obvious enough, the use of cheesy paper heart cut-outs illustrates further the blossoming romance destined to crash on the rocks of zombies and Rock 'N' Roll. Before they can get too far though, Ace has to leave so he doesn't miss GW's show in Asahi-Cho, telling Tobio that it'd be nice to bump into her again sometime... like the boy's looking into a fucking crystal ball... What he bumps into first though, is AN OUT BREAK OF ZOMBIES!!! Well, okay, so a small gang of zombies chewing on a couple of unlucky souls doesn't exactly warrant a cry of "OUTBREAK!", nor will we need to call in Dustin Hoffman (or a picture of Al Pacino standing in for Dustin Hoffman due to a recent legal dispute... there are probably nine people in the world who got that reference, so I'll forgive you if you missed it...), but zombies munching guts on the side of the street isn't something you see everyday... unless you're George Romero and your LSD flashbacks are on a rampage again...

Ace freaks out appropriately enough, hops his bike and takes off and blistering speeds in excess of 10 miles an hour. He stops briefly when he realizes Tobio is stranded alone back at the Quick Stop™, considers going back for her and ultimately does so after a mirage of Guitar Wolf tells Ace that he's really got no other choice but to go save her in the name of love and "Lock 'N' Lolllllllllll!". Elsewhere, the three nimrods from the gas station incident swear vengeance on Ace for botching their "great heist", but it's a vengeance that Masao won't be crying through anytime in this lifetime, as he's overpowered by the living dead and used for a between-meals-snack. To think, one man's entire life comes down to being no better than a handful of nacho-flavored Combos™. Makes ya think, doesn't it?

Elsewhere, it looks like the outbreak has finally gotten underway, as zombies shuffle through the streets of Asahi-Cho, the arms dealers get their karmaic comeuppance in the city limits and lovely Tobio finds her quiet convenience store paradise turned into an Oasis of the Zombies! Big hero Ace comes cavalry ridin' to the rescue on his scooter of might, fending off the hungry ghouls with a conveniently place mop and a page out of the Toxic Avenger's "How To Beat On Villains With Items Found Around The House" superhero-ing manual. The two young lovers-to-be escape when the zombies can't figure their way through a big metal gate which, though it has a short length of chain around it, is in no way locked... As for the Captain, despite his prior defeat at the hands of GW, his boat has far from set sail out of this picture. While everyone else has taken the party Asahi-Cho's way, the Cap'n is makin' it happen, auditioning a new bubblegum girl talent to replace GW as his main attraction. But, the casting couch will have to wait for it's weekly staining, as our depraved bad guy learns of GW's performance in the next town, prompting him to don his shortest pair of Daisy Dukes (...), get together an armful of firearms and drive his sweet ride out on a short road trip of revenge!

Jump back to the would-be arms buyer, enjoying some quiet shower time at her little commando condo, only to be interrupted by that "every time I get in the shower" nuisance: reanimated cadavers with blue faces and a taste for meat... and everybody else thought ringing phone was a pain-in-the-ass. "You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel". Lucky for her she has a heavy caliber piece by her side at all times (right on the toilet tank for times such as this) and the once menacing zombies are soon little more than headless corpses. The horde awaiting on her front lawn on the other hand, well, she doesn't have the proper ammunition stock for, so she instead throws on her "Bond girl" jumpsuit and drives off in her Hummer. Back in town, Ace and Tobio hold up in an abandoned house NotLD style and take the alone time to get better acquainted. There's no better time to get to know the real guy/girl in your life than when you're alone together and surrounded by people trying to eat you. For instance, Ace hates himself and thinks of himself as a useless, scared little dork, while Tobio, well, Tobio's a guy... insert double/spit take here.

In revelation of Tobio's "little man", Ace freaks and locks himself in another room, where his Guitar Wolf hallucination appears once again to tell him that love, like rock 'n' roll, holds no borders, nationalities or genders, and that Ace should just get over his stigmas and "DO IT!!!"... which, hallucination of Guitar Wolf or not, Ace ain't buyin' into... yet. It's about this time that our resident wiener remembers the magic whistle given him by his idol, and within seconds Guitar, Bass and Drum are racing to his rescue. Hey, every group should be so dedicated! After all, without the fans, there wouldn't be anyone to buy their CDs, DVDs, t-shirts or collectors' plates.

With a renewed vigor, Ace takes up a crowbar and grows some short 'n' curlies, ready to be the hero the script has set him up to become. But the real action's back at the gas station, where all the movie's separate entities start to converge paths. GW have picked up a couple of frantic hitchhikers (the now dead Masao's disagreeable couple/friends) in their quest for Ace, stopping to look for him at the Kwik-E-Mart, to whose pumps should pull up who else but the militant broad and her hummer covered in unwelcome skin munchers! Guitar pops a couple heads with his piece before single-handedly smoking the rest with a hail of supernaturally charged guitar picks, unleashed like a hundred rapid fire throwing stars... I repeat, by the end we'll all be standing with our pants around our ankles, muttering in baffled wonder, "this movie has everything...".

Back to Tromeo & Juliet, Tobio walks slow-mo through the streets alone, pondering if he/she'll ever find the man love he/she seeks so desperately, while Ace admonishes his manliness in a bath of zombie blood and busted brain juices thanks to his new friend Bluey the Crowbar. As for the rest of our cheerful dinner party guests, the she-mercenary takes them all over to her personal black market warehouse and her weapons cache/inventory, where the zombies have of course followed, leading to more madness and splattered brains, which is of course why we all came here! As for the rest of the world? While all this crazy shit's happening in the one horse town of Asahi-Cho, it seems a full-on invasion's hit the Earth! Wacky yellow saucers litter the skies of the US, the Middle East, Asia and my hometown of Egypt! It's a worldwide extraterrestrial zombie hoedown!

Not interested in saving Ace or anything other than escaping this mess with her neck in tact, the as-yet-unnamed arms dealer insists on everybody arming up and getting the fuck out. To sway her opinion in their favor though, Guitar Wolf pretends to pull a small ball of solid gold he stole from the Cap out of a zombie's gaping neck hole, informing her he found it inside the ghoul. Her deduction is less than elementary for this Sherlock, thinking that all the zombies have stomachs full of these gold balls, therefore now she plans to kill them all and harvest their entrails... greed makes some people crazy and others thick as the bricks with which they hit themselves.

As you can guess, the couple are the first to die, zombie fodder that they are, but not before the woman tells our G.I. Jane that she herself may be dying, but at least she's dying knowing love, while Butch will be on her way out knowing nothing more than her gun... though the power of Smith & Wesson will always be more effective against a cast of Romero rejects than love any day. Go back to The Care Bear Movie you asshole! Sappy sentiment aside, Guitar and Butch (which is what I'm calling her until I get an official name) finally find the berserker Ace, just in the nick of it, as he's about to trade in his rock 'n' roll lifestyle for an undead code of ethics. With a bout of motivational screaming by Guitar, a sidearm courtesy of Butch and an abandoned scooter he finds on the street, Ace is back, running and gunning as he heads out to find the man-woman he loves! As for the Cap'n. he's in town and blowin' shit up in his bid for revenge on Guitar's head! But, it'll take more than a pair of tiny blue hot pants, a bad wig and a fall from a four story building to kill "LOCK 'N' LOLLLLLLLLLL!"... however, the green lightning bolts Cap shoots from his eyes after a run-in with a downed power line just might be enough... if not for the timely intervention of Bass, Drum and their limited edition Guitar Wolf bazooka! Just $2.97 shipping & handling and 4 billion Bazooka Joe™ comics! Like you expected a bazooka joke to go anywhere else?!

As Ace finds Tobio and swears on his leather jacket and rock 'n' roll his undying love for a dude, the celluloid madness finally comes to a hilt, as Guitar stands atop a building, pulls an enchanted katana from the neck of his guitar, and cuts the aliens' mother ship in half, ending the zombie menace in a less-than-Independence Day explosion. The ghouls all drop instantly, Guitar gives Ace his comb as a memento (and so Ace won't have to do upkeep on his punk rag with his mom's comb anymore), the band drives off into the sunset, our hero finds homosexual love with the femmiest looking man this side of the lead singer for that group who sings that song about being spun right round like a record (baby) and Butch apparently does end the pic not knowing true love... nor with an armful of gold balls... huh, so much for her happiness. Oh well, like Ace, I think there's two things we all learned from GW and Wild Zero: courage and "LOCK 'N' LOLLLLLLLLL!". Yes, lock 'n' loll. Lock 'n' loll bless us, everyone.

Wow. Aliens, zombies, a punk rock soundtrack, exploding heads, laser beam eyes, fireballs, mystical guitar sword, enchanted guitar picks, nekkid chick with a big gun, a "love knows no genders" romance and a punk rock Cinderella story of finding your inner bad-ass! Wow. See, I told ya this movie had it all. I also told ya I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! WHY DIDN'T YA BELIEVE ME?! Happy happy, joy joy.

As stated earlier, Wild Zero plays like a spiritual successor to J. Michael McCarthy's The Sore Losers, with crazy outer space case action, supernatural lunacy and rock 'n' roll attitude to boot it in the ass. Coincidence that Guitar Wolf should show their faces prominently in both? Makes you wonder if McCarthy's gone under an alias, gotten plastic surgery to have his eyes slanted and hit the Japanese movie market to try to appropriate the yen to dig his fingers deeper into the Japanese subculture than he's had luck with here in the states. Everything about Wild Zero is a step-or-three up from Sore Losers, from the film and audio quality to the CGI. The alien ships, the laser beam eyes, Wolf's magical weapons and all that crap looks much more refined this time around. The head explosions (one of the more prominent elements of the flick) vary from the badly done to the bad-assly done... provided "bad-assly" is a legitimate adjective. Though some of them consist of little more than a whole head disintegrating into a few splats of blood and brain, there are a couple that seem near flawless. Check out the first head Butch explodes after she slips on her "Bond girl" body suit and heads for her hummer. Then again, the fact that my (or rather my girlfriend's) copy of the flick is a bootleg means the image is muddy enough that the CGI isn't so "crisp and clear", blending it in better with the rest of the film. Intentional? Probably not. But worth a moment of silent awe? You bet!

Another element Wild Zero benefits from over Sore Losers is the toned down plot elements. Anyone who's ever seen the latter known how hard it can be to wrap your noodle around it just because of all the crazy bullshit McCarthy stuffs it with. Not to say it's not entertaining, but sometimes it just too fucking much to digest! Wild Zero keeps the crazy mindfucks in line, not explaining them all in "connect the dots" fashion, but not overwhelming viewers either. Like the old saying goes, "I got better things you can blow than my mind baby, so let's get down to business!". I think it came from an episode of "The Flying Nun", but who said it's not so important as the message it conveys. It also cuts down McCarthy's tendency to throw '50s & '60s popular culture in our faces, like old sci-fi/horror comicbooks and exploitation movies, without forgetting the focus is on the rock 'n' roll punk sci-fi horror movie motif. Don't know exactly where I'm going with all this, but it's NOT a McCarthy movie despite all my babbling for the last few paragraphs, so don't be confused into thinking so. Wild Zero is better than that. It's not perfect, but it's flaws are few and pale in comparison to the movie's sheer entertainment value and "everything but the kitchen sink!" girth. Definitely one of the highlights of Japanese zombie cinema. Highly recommended and a "must view" of the Tomb.

Now, let's just hope Hollywood doesn't catch wind of it and Ring the fun out of it...