The feel-good zombie movie is a sub sub genre that has precious little entries to date. I mean, it’s hardly surprising considering that the staggering, decaying remnants of our friends and family hardly lend themselves to cute, frothy feelings, yet movies such as Shaun Of The Dead, both Zombieland flicks, Warm Bodies, Little Monsters and technically One Cut Of The Dead has tried to pull off with varying degrees of success.
However, with the extravagantly titled Zom 100: Bucket List Of The Dead, we have another entry that tries to find the silver lining of a zombie apocalypse by maintaining that a definite up-side is that you no longer have to go back to your shitty job – something I’m sure a lot of us can relate to. But can this latest, Asian, zombie entry from Netflix (surely worthy of a sub sub genre of it’s own these days) manage to uphold the glass-half-full nature of the original Manga, or even the anime series that sprung from it early this year?
Perpetually perky Japanese graduate, Akira Tendo, is absurdly excited about starting his new, corporate, job and has gleeful visions of him helping change the world as he lives the important, full and worthwhile live that he wants, but after we flash forward a year, it seems things haven’t gone quite to plan. You see, it’s tough to remain positive when your job is as toxic as the drool of a komodo dragon, you’re forced pull all-nighters days at a time due to the inhuman work load and your boss treats you worse than Dobby the house elf.
However, things change when Akria wakes up one morning to find that Japan has been overwhelmed by a deadly pandemic that’s turned the majority of the population into bile dribbling zombies virtually overnight. At first, Akira, naturally, is terrified, but once he gets over that initial shock, a glimmer of realisation lances through him – he doesn’t have to go in to work!
This impressive act of turning a frown upside down continues when Akira, fully resigned to the fact that he’ll become a zombie sooner or later decides that he’ll start living life to the fullest and fashions a bucket list comprised of things he wants to experience before his untimely demise.
One of his first missions is to reconnect with his estranged best friend, self-obsessed jock, Kencho and to do that he has to rescue him from a brothel swarming with zombies. But once they’ve reconciled, Kencho joins Akira in fulfilling his hopeful list.
Someone who proves sceptical to treating the end of the world as a carefree voyage of self-discovery is super-serious survivalist, Shizuka, who begrudgingly gives up her loner streak to travel with the guys to find safety, but can the joyous mindset of Akira possibly last in a world full of death, infection and *checks notes* zombie sharks?!
The one thing that’s vitally important to remember while watching Zom 100 is that you should never forget that what you’re watching is an anime/manga adaptation that seems to be intended as a missile to be launched at the gloomy nihilism of other living dead properties such as The Walking Dead. Playing its comedy card to the hilt, director Yûsuke Ishisa makes sure that cynicism and real-world logic have no real place here and instead infuses this world with bright colour, broad smiles and a sense of cartoonish absurdity.
The real joke here is that while everyone we meet is terrified of the undead hordes that ravage the streets, Akira drifts through life as gleeful as can be, positively euphoric that he doesn’t have to spend another second at his soul sucking job and the movie handles it rather well, having our lead’s cheerful outlook gradually infect those around him into relaxing and enjoying life regardless of the circumstances. It’s a genuinely sweet premise and the idea that a demanding, openly hostile work environment can prove to be so oppressive that a zombie outbreak proves to be a life affirming experience is probably one of the most relatable premises I’ve seen in ages.
However, it’s the tone of the film that will probably divide viewers as the filmmakers choose to show everything from Akira’s point of view and while the sight of a zombie plagued Japan portrayed in primary colours and sparkly lights is a feast for the eyes, it might have played a lot funnier if we had switched between Akira’s unbeat view of the world and what everybody else is seeing. Elsewhere, while Eiji Akasao is certainly endearing as the lead, his goofy smiles and impassioned speeches make him seem less like a young man who has had the weight of the world taken off his shoulders thanks to it ending and more like an idiot who can’t grasp the true danger of his predicament. Maybe the anime had a chance to explore this better, but the only true indication the movie has that Akira isn’t an utter imbecile is the gradual coming round of Mai Shiraishi’s stern Shizuka – even when our hero announces that one of his list entries is to “become a superhero and save everybody”.
It’s with this plot thread mixed with the entire third act in general that Zom 100 might ultimately lose you as it doesn’t so much jump the shark, as have it grow legs and chase everyone around the place. With a hefty spoiler warning in place, the final third of the movie sees our mismatched trio find that the fortress-like aquarium they’ve been searching for is actually bring run by Akira’s tyrannical old boss (played by the sinister eyebrows of Godzilla: Final War’s Kazuki Kitamura who’s no stranger to playing over-the-top bastards) who runs the settlement with the same iron fist he ran his production company with. From here, the movie unleashes a zombie horde, a chance for Akira to go full-superhero and a rather novel mode of travel for a great white shark that’s so absurd, it makes Meg 2 feel like it should come with a sage, commentary from David Attenborough. However, while this fusion of The Thing and Jaws is possibly the single, most coolest thing I’ve seen this year, it lurches so far into the realms of cartoonishness, you would be forgiven if it threw off the whole tone of the movie.
However, while the divisive finale loses some of that relatablity factor, Zom 100: Bucket List Of The Dead, is still a goofy little time waster that boasts big ideas and fun (if not overly funny) set pieces that takes the overworked zombie genre into adorable new places. However, for a movie that is so obsessed with lists, it probably won’t make many itself…
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