Kichiku: Banquet of the Beasts (1997)

Fantastic!

Excellent but underrated film

Don't listen to the negative reviews

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

There are some shows that you feel are doing something weird for the sake of, and this feels like one of those films. It's easy to come up with something filled with continuous bore, I mean, gore, blood, mutilation of body parts and the likes just to elicit a shocking response from an audience, and probably to have some fun while at it during the production process with copious amounts of blood spraying, dripping and oozing around sets. This graduating film just seems like that.Written, directed and edited by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri, Kichiku: Banquet of the Beasts is supposedly based on a real incident known as the Asamo Sanso Incident in the 70s, where a group of left wing students had a stand off with the police in a lodge, and ultimately turned their violence inwards toward one another. In some ways the premise might seem like The Baader Meinhof Complex with its free love and violence to champion their cause, but this film had a lot more sadistic violence in store especially when the group start to hit the woods.It opens with a man being released from prison, where his cellmate Aizawa tells him to visit his revolutionary group, currently held together by his girlfriend Masami (Sumiko Mikami). As with most groups, when a charismatic leader is in the slammer, the survival of the group will depend very much on the leadership ability of the interim leader, which Masami has failed in many ways, manipulating the group through threats and her not-so-hot body - well I guess if you're the only chick in the group, the rest will just make do. These are revolutionaries who are dedicated to their cause, but look more like lost sheep without a leader, partying away while awaiting the release of Aizawa.Which doesn't happen, and provides the catalyst of a lot more gore to come in the film, from the disemboweling of the gut, right down to exploding heads, fondling of brain matter, castration, mutilation, decapitation and what have yous. Masami goes crazy with deep running distrust that someone in the group is a mole, and hence the very prolonged scenes of violence and torture, that seems to numb after a while when everyone gets into the act of self-preservation. Too much of a good (or bad) thing being repeated, just loses it and makes it seem like it's in for purely visual shock-reasons.The sole redeeming grace for me in this film, is the awesome soundtrack, where the primary use of drum beats did seem suspiciously similar to Tan Dun's masterpiece in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Probably the only thing that kept me awake from snoozing in this film that fell flat.

The leader of a group of "radicals" gets jailed and passes leadership on to his girlfriend. She's apparently not good enough a leader so the only thing that can happen, naturally, is that the group, instead of dissolving, slowly falls apart - limb by limb.Two problems.The first problem is the first half is painfully boring. There is probably some kind of reason the characters open their mouths to speak with each other but I just didn't have the energy to listen. Even nudity could not save this film: in the first few minutes we are treated to a rather liberal view of the jailed gang leader's girlfriend having sex with one of the cronies, but any potentially raised interest soon withers the moment her face is revealed. The girlfriend - who unfortunately plays a central role - has a face that can only be described as aesthetic murder. Flat nose, fat lips, she resembles some kind of mongoloid monkey rather than a woman. Be prepared to look at her a lot. Giggling annoyingly. In the end, you may just be tempted to fast forward in the hope of seeing her killed.The second problem is the violence itself - once it does arrive in the second half. I just can't imagine even the most mindless gore-loving pimple-faced adolescent sociopath finding any kind of pleasure in this, since all the violence happens too slowly - so slowly that by the time you see blood, you've long since had the wind knocked out of you. Who cares NOW?!For some strange reason, the film also indulges in a trait that I have found to be typically Japanese: people getting beaten, kicked, stomped on and bloodied, who simply lay there without resisting. There was a particularly pathetic scene where an "angry" guy yelps like a timid schoolgirl as he weakly "kicks" some other guy who is laying on the ground (ooh, hey, he kicked him in the hip! mean, dude! cruel stuff!). This ridiculous scene goes on for five minutes and was enough to make me hate this stupid movie forever.Other reviewers here have made an excellent point about the film's political significance. If that's what you're watching for, and if you "get it," then have fun. Otherwise, if you are looking for some kind of horror film with a semblance of a plot, stay away from this boring piece of garbage. It's not entertainment.

Kazuyoshi Kumakiri's KICHIKU DAI ENKAI (BANQUET OF THE BEASTS) began its life as a $60,000 student film that eventually screened at several film festivals. At its core, this is a political film that follows a group of Japanese activists whose leader is locked up but demands via a letter that his girlfriend Masami be the group's short-term director (never a good idea). Masami is quite sadistic and anyone who doesn't follow her order (or accept her sexual advances) ends up as fodder. Naturally, the group succumbs to the various pressures and eventually spirals out of control, resulting in a graphic series of confrontations in the film's last half.Featuring more than a few moments of outrageous violence, KICHIKU DAI ENKAI is a bizarre film that never really surmounts its student film roots. It is an interesting study on game theory and paranoia but, to be quite honest, this reviewer found the film to be a complete bore. Artsmagic has peppered their DVD release with multiple quotes about the film's graphic bloodshed, possibly hoping to pull in the gorehound crowd. There are several supremely violent scenes, but one must endure a series of boring sessions of socio-political babble and childish infighting. To the film's credit, it is nicely shot, well edited and incorporates some discordant stock footage to create an effective mood.

I made several abortive attempts to start watching this movie, but it was so boring that I kept giving up. I just made it all the way through, and I have to say I thought it was a waste of time.A group in Japan has a leader in jail. A woman in the group has sex with some of the members. They noisily eat some noodles. They go into the woods and kill a few of their members. They laugh annoyingly. They go to an abandoned building and the remaining members kill each other. The end.There's simply not much that happens in this movie. The group's purpose was never really explained, nor do they ever do anything. None of the characters have any characterization. The end credits were not subtitled in the version I saw; perhaps there was some explanatory text mixed in? There were also some handpainted signs in the beginning of the movie that no translation was given for; perhaps it would have helped to know what they said.There are scenes with gore starting about an hour into the movie, but if that's all you're looking for, then you're better off watching another movie. If you must watch this one, I'd advise generous usage of the fast-forward button.