The original 'Kisarazu Cat's Eye', I gather, was a TV series about a baseball team,one of whose members had cancer and had just six months to live.
This film is set three years after his death and, despite the above description, is a comedy. One of the teammates hears voices, telling him: "If you build it, he will come." He therefore reunites with his ex-teammates to try and carry out what he supposes to be his ex-team-mate's wishes. First they try building a massage parlour, but that is not what the mysterious voice requires, so they try building a Starbucks coffee-house before eventually trying a baseball pitch. At this point zombies turn up and the film gets really crazy.
At first I thought I was only going to be giving it three stars but as the film went on, I began to enjoy it more and more. It is quite surreal and extremely funny in places. It is very confusing, with constant flash-backs, but not knowing the original series was not a serious hindrance to enjoying it. It was fast-paced and enjoyable, although the baseball game in the final section dragged on a bit.
The film lasts 132 minutes and I obtained my Region 1 DVD from Amazon.com. The subtitles are good. (At the start of the film, I was concerned as the English subtitles appeared on top of burnt-in Japanese subtitles which did not appear to make much sense. But then the camera pulled back to reveal the characters were watching a Korean TV drama and the burnt-in subtitles stopped.)
I bought the film as Chiaki Kuriyama is my favourite actress but, unfortunately, she only provides a very brief cameo. She plays a very tough army trainer (Yes, really!!!) in a military camp and is absolutely brilliant in her few minutes of screen time.
If I was asked to choose something it was similar in tone to, I would say the old Australian TV series: 'Round the Twist'.
