AKA: Ah! House Collapses; Ah! Ikkenya puroresu; lit. Ah! Pro-Wrestler Mansion
Country and Year: Japan (2005)
Director: Naoki Kudo
Starring: Shinya Hashimoto, Nicholas Pettas, Sonim, Shiro Sano

Review By: David Austin
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)

[Oh! My Zombie Mermaid is playing at the NYAFF one last time on Friday, June 23 at 6:30 at the Anthology Film Archives. See the full schedule here.]

I have not seen Nacho Libre yet, so I remain open to convincing, but all evidence so far indicates that the only people capable of making a good wrestling movie are the Asians and the Mexicans. While America has been churning out flatulence joke-ridden garbage with David Arquette, the Japanese created that minor miracle of weirdness, The Calamari Wrestler, and Korea produced the genuinely touching and hilarious Foul King (there is no need to go into the long history of Mexican lucha libre films, though the days of El Santo’s big screen dominance are sadly over). The modern Asian dominance over the genre continues. Case in point: Oh! My Zombie Mermaid.

Ostensibly the tale of a professional wrestler and his love for his zombie mermaid wife, OMZM is actually about one thing and one thing only: total mayhem. From the opening brawl which had me laughing harder than I had in weeks, to the non-stop series of deranged death matches that close out the last act of the film, OMZM is all about the fun of watching enormous people absolutely destroy each other and everything around them.

There is a proper film of sorts in between the mayhem – this is the only reason OMZM does not rank a full four stars. Wisely, the filmmakers attempt to distract us during the non-mayhem oriented portions of the film by indulging in the type of cinematic eccentricity for which the Japanese are justly famous, as for example, with scenes where the hero’s topless sister-in-law bites him about the arms and shoulders (you don’t get to see anything, pervs). It’s something to do while you wait for the next supplex or power bomb.

The film picks up at a garden party celebrating the new home of Kota Shishio (real-life wrestler Shinya Hashimoto), King of Beasts and leader of the famed Zero Wrestling Group, and his pretty wife Asami (Urara Awata). All seems well until the ominous Mark Ichijo (K-1 fighter Nicholas Pettas) shows up. We know he’s evil because he wears sunglasses and is always accompanied by a musical sting. Ichijo tells off the increasingly domesticated Shishio and starts a huge brawl that ruins the party. Soon, this becomes the least of Shishio’s worries as a bomb blows the house into smithereens. Asami is wounded in the explosion, and begins to develop a weird skin condition, grow scales, and turn into a mermaid.

Meanwhile, Shishio and his cohorts, including Asami’s sister Nami (Sonim) and two young idiots who want to be wrestlers, try to earn money to rebuild the house, so that Asami can regain the will to live. However, the money is out of reach until Shishio’s sinister TV producer associate Yamaji (Shiro Sano) comes up with a brilliant idea: a death match against the DDD wrestling all-stars, killers all, with the prize being a new house/castle.

Honestly, all the mermaid stuff is just a big distraction from the real attraction – the gonzo fight sequences as Shishio makes his way up the castle levels, fighting in swift succession a chain match against a hairy westerner in a confined bathroom, a vicious Amazon in a bathhouse complete with electrified pool, a tag team bout against a zombie and a maniac armed with falling chandeliers, and a kung fu expert, before facing off against the final surprise boss.

OMZM wears its film influences on its shoulder. It’s a direct descendant of Bruce Lee’s Game of Death (the pagoda featuring increasingly fierce and outlandish opponents) and Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man (with its outré costumes and media-televised carnage). The filmmakers are also clearly fans of the infamous Story of Ricky, borrowing its patented strangle-someone-with-your-own-intestines move as well as the “X-Ray Attack” which Ricky in turn took from Sonny Chiba’s The Street Fighter (and which was swiped again by Jet Li in the mediocre Romeo Must Die). All the better – if you’re going to steal, steal from the best and make it your own (though nothing has ever topped Story of Ricky – our correspondent Jeff has vowed to live his life by the precepts of that film).

Shinya Hashimoto is great here as Kota – proving that while Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels, pro wrestlers do everything actors do, only in Speedos and with someone’s armpit in their face. Hashimoto anchors the film, turning in a grounded performance that keeps things from flying too far off into the deep end. Sadly, Hashimoto died in July of 2005 of a brain hemorrhage. Nicholas Pettas also does as good job as Ichijo, playing the role straight as it requires. While there is some awkward digital enhancement, the majority of the fighting is done straight (or at least appears to be) and is tons of fun to watch.

Recommended? Yes, the utter insanity of the beginning and end more than make up for the slow middle stretch. Little touches like Shishio’s friends who always wear masks, and one of the greatest comic death scenes of all-time, will help this one stick in your head.

If you like this, you might like: The Calamari Wrestler, The Foul King, Story of Ricky, The Running Man, Game of Death, Beetle the Horn King

© David Austin