UNDERTAKER: The Zombie Apocalypse As Mood Piece
It's amazing how far the zombie movie has come in thelast few decades. It's gone from a cult fave subgenre for horror fans to one ofthe most reliable commercial trends for all levels of the horror marketplace.They tap into survivalist/end-of-the-world fantasies that are at a peak intoday's society - and it's built around a simple set of elements that makes itpossible for filmmakers at all budgetary levels to take a crack at the format.
Case in point: Undertaker.This 2012 effort from Japan was shot on video without the usual "filmlook" digital approach and utilized a budget in the mid-five-figure range.The narrative flow is almost dream-like, starting with a prologue where peopleare being evacuated from their villages as some sort of epidemic is takingroot. A young boy named Ryouchi (Shinta Souma) gets caught up in a van wreck ashe realizes one of his fellow kids is a zombie.
He escapes on foot and is taken in by a woman who is asort of bounty hunter, tracking down people's zombified loved ones to put themout of their undead misery. Years later, a grown Ryouchi (Yoshito Kobishagawa)has taken her place. He takes on a job to retrieve and kill a young zombifiedmother for her parents so they can know she is at rest. The hunt takes him intoan abandoned mall where he must outwit a nest of zombies while dealing with thesurvivor trauma he copes with each day.
Undertakerruns just 64 minutes, including a lengthy end credits roll. This ensures that it moves at a steady clipand doesn't waste time as it crafts its own minimalist atmosphere. It alsomeans that the film also doesn't traffic in the kind of niceties the averageviewer expects: there's little in the way of character development and Ryuichidoesn't experience a character arc beyond fulfilling another deadly mission. Itsidesteps weaving in the kind of social or political commentary one often seesin zombie films and the narrative is content to fade out rather than build to arousing climax.
In fairness, Undertakerdoesn't really seem interested in hitting the expected genre marks. It's moreof a mood piece, using its main character to illustrate the human cost thatwould come with such a societal breakdown. Through Ryouchi, it shows thedifficulty of holding on to one's sanity and sense of humanity in such asituation. Writer/director Naoyoshi Kawamatsu gives the film a muted, sombertone that evokes an appropriately haunted quality befitting the lonely hero'squest - and the performances of Souma and Kobishagawa convey the fear, sense ofloss and emotional strain the main character struggles with.
Thus, Undertakermight not be for those who expect a more action-oriented approach to the zombiefilm but those open to different modes of expression under a genre banner mightfind this film's powerful sense of mood intriguing.
Blu-Ray Notes: Undertaker recently received a release from Synapse Films on blu-ray and DVD. The blu-ray's presentation brings crispness to the lo-fi visuals and the lossless presentation of the Japanese 2.0 stereo shows just how complex the sound design is. The disc also includes a short film from the director, deleted scenes, an image gallery and a trailer. The most interesting inclusion is a documentary on the film that is nearly as long as the film itself!