“Martial arts? You’re fighting zombies!”…

This line, delivered in exasperation to deflate the pride of one of Tokyo Zombie’s jiu-jitsu practicing protagonists, pretty much sums up all the virtues—and limitations—of writer/director Sakichi Satô’s 2005 film. In other words, what a cool premise: pit skilled fighters against the undead and maybe you get some of the insane appeal that Fulci mustered all those years ago when he had a zombie square off against a shark. On the other hand, when the zombies themselves take too much of a backseat to a host of other dramatic, comedic, and generic concerns, at one point has one not really furthered the subgenre?

Such competing emphases reveal Satô’s fascinating, if somewhat contradictory, intentions: to create a straightforward (if wacky), genre-splitting anarcho-gorefest that rocks the built-in audience for such a movie… and to fashion something more than just a fun, straight-ahead zombie-flick, to break the rules so much that he’s departed the recognizable playing field. The end result is that while certainly Tokyo Zombie is a worth-seeing collection of riffs on the well-worn themes of Romeroland, it’s also an uninhibited freakfest of a much more general sort. That is, elements of very broad satire and buddy movies are stressed to such an extent that the zombies are sometimes beside the point.

And of course that’s the wellspring of Tokyo Zombie’s winking tone: it’s a zombie apocalypse movie that really couldn’t care less about the “apocalypse” part. Sure, there’s a half-way serious exploration of social and class issues in the face of such a cataclysm, much of it derived from the source material, but the larger point seems to be that the end of civilization actually wouldn’t affect the status quo in too many important ways. Based on the manga by Yusaku Hanakuma, Tokyo Zombie emulates his faux naif style in both narrative and visual design. In other words, there’s plenty that looks fake in this film, starting with “Dark Fuji” (a mountain of trash and corpses) and extending to the characters’ emotions. Apparently the filmmakers believe that this approach will charm you and, strangely enough, most of the time it does.

This is nowhere more evident than in the cheap-looking indoor gladiatorial arena where the zombies face off against the living in UFC-style contests; the walls look like high-grade aluminum foil, creating an effect both campy and austerely creepy. For the duration of the sequences that take place there, Tokyo Zombie is pure, pulpy pleasure, delivering crazed thrills in an unassuming way.

As such, and because Tokyo Zombie features friendship at the heart of its story, comparisons to Shaun of the Dead are inevitable (note: Hanakuma’s manga predates Edgar Wright’s film). However, I think it may be the differences between the two movies that are most instructive, both to those reflecting on Tokyo Zombie (moi) as well as those deciding whether they should see it in the first place. Unlike Wright’s and Simon Pegg’s wild, but essentially rational and crowd-pleasing approach to comedy, TZ’s humor resides mostly at two extremes—the dead-pan (Q: “Who are these people?” A: “They are probably zombies.”) and the utterly ludicrous (a zombie with dentures is critical to the plot). And with its art film-like long-takes-with-a-stationary-camera approach to its absurdist scenes (of which there are many), the film often plays like a grindhouse version of Waiting for Godot. (So all right, by this point is it starting to sound a little less like Shaun?)

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one thing that Tokyo Zombie undeniably has going for it is its leads. I guess that’s to be expected when you have one of the biggest, most reliable, and certainly one of the most versatile stars on the planet in Tadanobu Asano. So go ahead and place his somewhat dim-witted but lovable Fujio alongside his roles in Ichi the Killer and Mongol as yet another unique and memorable creation. Shô Aikawa, the star of several of Miike’s films (including a personal favorite, Zebraman) is terrific as well. Indeed, the Japanese teasers and trailers (which Anchor Bay has provided among the DVD’s robust extras) proclaim the two actors “dream partners,” a characterization that’s hard to argue with.

Then again, its effective casting of these popular stars reflects Tokyo Zombie’s deeper strategy, namely, how it sneakily wants us to care even while the movie’s sophomoric nihilism would suggest that caring is for squares. In this sense, Satô allows the movie, and therefore the audience, to be cynical and sentimental—take your pick. This is a mixture that some viewers are bound to be put off by while others, just as inevitably, are going to find it refreshing and appealing. So while its free and easy ways and the resultant lack of focus undermines Tokyo Zombie as impactful entertainment… they also make it one of the more interesting zombie films of recent years.