Mad Cats

Third Window

Mad Cats, the feature debut of Reiki Tsuno, is an energetic but flawed entry into the world of wilfully silly, hyper-cheap horror comedies that we are seeing more of since the break out success of 2017’s One Cut Of The Dead.

Our protagonist (Shô Mineo), a loafing no-mark living out of his trailer, is distraught and aimless after the disappearance of his brother, only to be spurred into action by the arrival of a mysterious tape. Following its lead he, along with a cat-food guzzling homeless man (Yuya Matsuura) and a bowl-cut lethal weapon of a mysterious stranger (Ayane), is pulled into a rabbit hole involving ancient Egypt, assassins and, crucially, cat-people.

The terror for a film that sits in this wilfully daft tone is that it looks contrived in its silliness or that it is trying too hard. Mad Cats, at least in its early stages, manages to avoid this fate. It is pleasingly tightly told early doors, and manages to move with real momentum without revealing too much of itself. By hook or by crook it charms through its no-fat storytelling and by being pleasingly un-self conscious about its cheapness, leaning into its wonky green screen and duff wigs.

But Tsuno’s inexperience becomes apparent in the second act, in which things begin to derail. The tone shift from the opening momentum into trying to build the central trio’s relationship is hamfisted at best, trying to balance emotional development with what is essentially just a conveyor belt of cat-women with different weapons; the kind of story you make up with your action figures when you are a kid. The video game-like structure can work — think of Game Of Death or The Raid — and the action sequences are well handled, but it’s the spaces in-between, where the characters and script have to stand on their own two feet, in which the performances and jokes don’t quite land.

It doesn’t help that the central characters are quite so irritating. Ayane brings some of her pop star nonchalant charisma to a paper-thin character, but the largely unknown Mineo portrays the protagonist as a sort of apex duffer, all constant flailing and wild eyes. You are less so charmed, more constantly begging for him to be flayed by one of the lineup of feline assassins. In all fairness though, I’m not sure Daniel Day-Lewis could bring anything more to a script that demands you whisper “The Forbidden Catnip!” in an awestruck, forbidding fashion either. But this, combined with Matsuura’s rather hollow shouty performance, means that the core of the film — the relationship between this odd couple — never gels and as such the heart of the story never truly develops.

There is something strangely admirable about how big Mad Cats swings, its commitment to its own childish rambunctiousness; but ultimately it can’t string itself together beyond a funny idea and some well-done set pieces. There’s certainly an interesting film-maker in there, and there is evidence of it here; but equally there is one that is still finding their feet, still to nail the difficult execution of a particular brand of absurdity.

-Joe Creely-