As The Gods Will (2016)
Dir. Takeshi Miike
Starring: Shôta Sometani, Ryûnosuke Kamiki, Rirî Furankî
Review By Greg Klymkiw
The ridiculously prolific Takeshi Miike generates a blood-spattered Lewis Carroll-like fantasy from the manga by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Akeji Fujimura in which a trio of high school students need to outwit a few bizarre entities in order to survive. The first episode is a truly hilarious and vicious adventure involving a not-to-bright daruma doll playing red-light-green-light with a classroom full of adolescents.
Any student caught moving in the daruma's gaze results in their head exploding. Needles to say, there are plenty of opportunities for Miike to focus on cerebellum-popping carnage. Head explosions never overstay their welcome. Unfortunatelty, a few other elements, do.
Alas, the film grinds oppressively after this terrific opening as our hapless heroes are pursued by a huge "waving cat, amongst other other grotesqueries. There's a kind of live-action video gaming quality to the proceedings and things just seem to go on and on for what seems like an eternity.
At four minutes shy of two hours, "eternity" seems to be the operative word here.
THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two Stars
As the Gods Will enjoys its Canuck premiere at Fantasia 2016.