Wild Zero is a
2000The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.-Top-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the United States and Canada in 2000...
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese "Jet rock 'n' roll" zombie horror comedy cult classic directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi, and starring the Japanese
garage punkGarage punk is a rock music fusion of garage rock and punk rock. It is fast-paced, lo-fi music characterised by angular, choppy guitar sounds — usually played by bands who are on independent record labels or who are unsigned. Common lyrical themes range from cars, girls, school, toilet humor, sex,...
band
Guitar WolfGuitar Wolf is a Japanese garage punk power trio founded in Nagasaki, Nagasaki in 1987. The band is known for songs with piercing vocals and an extremely loud style of noise-influenced punk which emphasizes heavy distortion and feedback...
. It borrows many elements from other popular
B-movieA B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture conceived neither as an arthouse film nor as pornography. In its original usage, during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double...
s such as
PsychomaniaPsychomania is a 1971 British horror film starring Nicky Henson, and George Sanders as the devil worshiper.-Plot:Tom Latham enjoys riding his motorcycle with his girlfriend and loves his mother dearly, but Tom is no ordinary fellow, he is the leader of a violent, occult motorcycle gang...
and
Evil Dead IIEvil Dead II is a American cult comedy horror film. Standing as a sequel to 1981's The Evil Dead, the film was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, produced by Rob Tapert and starred Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams...
.
Ace, a wannabe rock star, is on his way to a concert of the band
Guitar WolfGuitar Wolf is a Japanese garage punk power trio founded in Nagasaki, Nagasaki in 1987. The band is known for songs with piercing vocals and an extremely loud style of noise-influenced punk which emphasizes heavy distortion and feedback...
when space aliens invade the Earth. As a result the dead rise to their feet in the countryside setting of Asahi, Japan, with an appetite for flesh.
Wild Zero is a
2000The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.-Top-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the United States and Canada in 2000...
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese "Jet rock 'n' roll" zombie horror comedy cult classic directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi, and starring the Japanese
garage punkGarage punk is a rock music fusion of garage rock and punk rock. It is fast-paced, lo-fi music characterised by angular, choppy guitar sounds — usually played by bands who are on independent record labels or who are unsigned. Common lyrical themes range from cars, girls, school, toilet humor, sex,...
band
Guitar WolfGuitar Wolf is a Japanese garage punk power trio founded in Nagasaki, Nagasaki in 1987. The band is known for songs with piercing vocals and an extremely loud style of noise-influenced punk which emphasizes heavy distortion and feedback...
. It borrows many elements from other popular
B-movieA B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture conceived neither as an arthouse film nor as pornography. In its original usage, during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double...
s such as
PsychomaniaPsychomania is a 1971 British horror film starring Nicky Henson, and George Sanders as the devil worshiper.-Plot:Tom Latham enjoys riding his motorcycle with his girlfriend and loves his mother dearly, but Tom is no ordinary fellow, he is the leader of a violent, occult motorcycle gang...
and
Evil Dead IIEvil Dead II is a American cult comedy horror film. Standing as a sequel to 1981's The Evil Dead, the film was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, produced by Rob Tapert and starred Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams...
.
Plot
Ace, a wannabe rock star, is on his way to a concert of the band
Guitar WolfGuitar Wolf is a Japanese garage punk power trio founded in Nagasaki, Nagasaki in 1987. The band is known for songs with piercing vocals and an extremely loud style of noise-influenced punk which emphasizes heavy distortion and feedback...
when space aliens invade the Earth. As a result the dead rise to their feet in the countryside setting of Asahi, Japan, with an appetite for flesh. Enlisting the help of Guitar Wolf, Ace and the members of the band get entangled in many misadventures with crazy rock managers in very tight shorts, transsexuals, naked women shooting guns in the shower, and bloodthirsty
zombieA zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer...
s ready to tear them apart. Leather jackets, loud over-modulated music, laser guitar picks, motorcycles,
gunsGüns, Guens:* German name of the city Kőszeg* German name of the Gyöngyös River* Kőszeg Mountains Güns, Guens:* German name of the city Kőszeg* German name of the Gyöngyös River* Kőszeg Mountains Güns, Guens:* German name of the city Kőszeg* German name of the Gyöngyös River* Kőszeg Mountains (*...
,
muscle carMuscle car is a term used to refer to a variety of high performance automobiles. At its most widely accepted the term refers to American 2-door rear wheel drive mid-size cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s equipped with large, powerful V8s and sold at an affordable price for street use and drag...
s, and fire abound.
Guitar WolfGuitar Wolf is a Japanese garage punk power trio founded in Nagasaki, Nagasaki in 1987. The band is known for songs with piercing vocals and an extremely loud style of noise-influenced punk which emphasizes heavy distortion and feedback...
, a Japanese trio signed to
Matador RecordsMatador Records is an independent record label, with a roster of indie rock artists and bands.-History:Matador was started by Chris Lombardi in 1989 in his New York City apartment. The following year, Lombardi was joined by former Homestead Records manager Gerard Cosloy, and the two of them have...
in the US—and self-proclaimed coolest rock band in the world—star as the well-coiffed heroes. It is also a love story, between Ace and the transsexual Tobio.
The music, in a
garage punkGarage punk is a rock music fusion of garage rock and punk rock. It is fast-paced, lo-fi music characterised by angular, choppy guitar sounds — usually played by bands who are on independent record labels or who are unsigned. Common lyrical themes range from cars, girls, school, toilet humor, sex,...
vein, plays an important role in the film. This film is similar to another movie by a Spanish punk group,
La matanza caníbal de los garrulos lisérgicos produced by
Siniestro TotalSiniestro Total is a Galician punk rock group from Vigo . It was founded in 1981 by Julián Hernández, Alberto Torrado and Miguel Costas. After many changes in group formation, it is presently formed by Julián Hernández, Javier Soto, Óscar G...
(a punk band from
VigoVigo is the largest city in Galicia, Spain, located in the province of Pontevedra.It has a population of 295,703, with an extended metropolitan population of 468,654, making it the 14th-largest metropolitan area of Spain. Vigo is the largest city in Spain which is not a provincial...
,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
).
Guitar Wolf
Energetic lead singer and guitarist of the band
Guitar WolfGuitar Wolf is a Japanese garage punk power trio founded in Nagasaki, Nagasaki in 1987. The band is known for songs with piercing vocals and an extremely loud style of noise-influenced punk which emphasizes heavy distortion and feedback...
.
Rides a specially designed motorcycle (with a liquor bottle holder up front) and is the aggressive action hero of the group.
Also acts as Ace's moral guide, much like Elvis guides Clarence in
True RomanceTrue Romance is an American romantic crime film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, director of Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II. It stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette with an ensemble cast; the film contains notable performances by some seasoned actors along with...
.
Never without his guitar which turns out to house a samurai sword hidden in the instrument's neck. In another memorable scene, he throws guitar picks as if they were
shurikenShuriken is a traditional Japanese concealed weapon that were generally for throwing, and sometimes stabbing or slashing...
.
Bass Wolf
Band member, bassist, and drug enthusiast. He is usually seen with a cigarette, though in one scene he appears only to be chewing on it. Usually rides in car with Drum Wolf. Although more quiet than Drum Wolf, he is more violent, often punching characters who annoy him.
Drum Wolf
Drummer of the band.
Usually rides in car with Bass Wolf. He is the most loud and obnoxious member of the group, often yelling at other characters.
Ace
Self-proclaimed "biggest Guitar Wolf fan in the world" with dreams of hitting it big as a musician himself (though never seen with an instrument in the entire film).
Slightly goofy, but has heart in the right place and thoroughly filled with love of Rock 'N' Roll.
Tobio
Damsel in distress with a hunger for love that is usually thwarted by the fact that she is actually a man. The issue of whether Tobio is
transgenderTransgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to diverge from the normative gender roles....
ed or just a very effeminate man or maybe an Intersexual is never made clear.
Captain
Guitar wolf's nemesis (and, as it is suggested, childhood friend), the manager of the club where Guitar Wolf was performing at the beginning of the film. His preference for money, drugs, and sex over the true spirit of rock n roll sparks the violent argument into which Ace storms at the film's beginning. Pursues Guitar Wolf throughout the film in an effort to exact his revenge for the loss of two fingers.
Later on Captain gains laser vision.
DVD information
- Encoding: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
- Format: Color, Widescreen
- Rated: NR
- Studio: Wea Corp
- DVD Release Date: September 30, 2003
- Run Time: 98 minutes
Drinking game
The DVD suggests a Wild Zero
drinking gameDrinking games are games which involve the drinking of alcoholic beverages. People have been playing drinking games since ancient times. Currently, they are most popular among college students...
, in which a drinking symbol appears every time:
- A character drinks
- A character says "Rock 'n Roll"
- A character combs their hair
- A head pops
- Something explodes
- Fire shoots out of something
- Tobio passes out
Trivia
- The zombies were played by Thai soldiers and their families.
- "Tobio" was played by a Thai actor and later dubbed for the dialogue.
- Reportedly, director Tetsuro Takeuchi begged Guitar Wolf to appear in this, his debut feature film, and they agreed on the condition that they could play themselves.
- Guitar Wolf said that the film was "stupid and fun".