Chasing World

D-

Directed by Issei Shibata

Adapted from the popular manga by Yasuke Yamada, "Chasing World" tells the story of one Tsusuba Sato who, in the midst of a fistfight with some local bullies, mysteriously warps into a parrallel universe where Japan is now an empire, ruled by an evil, iron mask wearing king who has decreed a deadly game of catch where all the Satos of Japan must be captured...and killed!
If the premise sounds like "Battle Royale" and youre getting ready to download the torrent file as we speak, save your bandwith. "Chasing World" never appraoches the genius that was "Battle Royale" and even in its finest moments is only mildly entertaining. The game of tag itself, which is by far the most exciting part of the film, doesn't last nearly long enough and is over all too soon (although I'm sure the surviving Satos would humbly disagree with that view) The film suffers from hilarious low production standards, so much so that an unsuspecting viewer who walked in half way and didn't here the charaters conversing in Japanese would probably believe they had stepped right into the middle of a Cambodian music video. The movie appears to have been shot on 8MM film with no lighting and no sound technician, giving it the overall visual flair of a graduation ceremony captured on camcorder. The costumes are equally hilrious, as the "king of Japan" dons a ridiculous metal mask and suit of armor that looks like a cross between the cotumes of Darth Vader and Ivanhoe. His royal court looks like an someone's emptied garage, which it may very well have been considering the rest of "Chasing World's" decidedly "budget-friendly" trappings. As a final complaint, I must say that the soundtrack, which the Fantasia people claimed was "melancholy classical" sounded rather like Mark Mothersbaugh as interpreted by Robert Lamm.