JAPAN: Executive Koala. 2005

Director: Minoru Kawasaki
Stars: Hironobu Nomura, Arthur Kuroda, Hideki Saijo, Eiichi Kikuchi, Lee Ho.
Release date: Japan - 14 Jan 2006
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Length: 85 mins

The director's previous works are just as absurdist. He seems to favour films thet have the main characters in animal costumed roles. The Calamari Wrestler was about a squid & his love life, while the delerious looking Kabuto-O Beetle is also another insane film about a wrestling beetle. The latter character was created by Go Nagai, the same dude who made Mazinger, Cutey Honey & Devilman. He seems to have a penchant for Japanese pro-wresting aka Puroresu & obviously so does Kawasaki. This new film has had good reviews from the festival circuit, despite it looking like a bowl of fruit loops. Calamari Wrestler just arrived in the mail on DVD. I think i'll get a crew of people to watch it though. They look like those kind of films.

Synopsis
Tamura is an average divorced salaryman in Japan - and also a man-sized, suit-and-tie wearing, upright-walking koala bear. Though not a human being, he's a successful businessman with ventures overseas who refuses to play office politics. He hopes to marry his girlfriend, Yoko, and raise a child. His visions are of an ordinary life with an ordinary company until his ordinary retirement. But when his girlfriend turns up dead one morning, the police finger the Executive Koala as their prime suspect. Temura runs from Detective Ono and fights to prove his innocence. Tamura wants to know why there are gaps in his memory. Is he a murderer? Does he have multiple personalities? And what does his bartender (the frog) and his boss (the rabbit) know about the two-hundred year old terrifying secret behind the EXECUTIVE KOALA?

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