Film within a Film

When is a zombie film no longer a zombie film? Okay, that’s a really silly question to ask because it should be patently obvious: does your work feature a zombie? Then it’s (at least in part) a zombie work. It is, however, a question I thought of when I was watching One Cut of the Dead (Kamera o Tomeru na! in Japanese, translated as "Don't Stop the Camera!"). Its opening act is that of a zombie film, fully and complete, for 36 minutes. But then the film changes and it stops really being a zombie film at all. And, most interestingly, that’s when the film gets really interesting.

To be clear, zombie films don’t need to conform to any set standard. Two of my favorites of the genre are non-conventional works: the rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead and the YA work Warm Bodies. Both of those films play with the conventions of the genre without clearly fitting directly into it, and they’re both (in my opinion, anyway) great. One Cut of the Dead plays with the genre in a different way, one that allows it to stand out and be its own kind of film, one that manages to delight, amaze, and entertain. It’s a great work of the genre that also sits outside the genre and, if you don’t want to be spoiled further on the film, I suggest you stop right here with the review and go watch it because to say anything more, at all, would be to ruin the twists the film has for its audience.

Good? Ready to go? Excellent. What makes One Cut of the Dead so interesting, and the reason why I struggle to know just where, exactly, to slot this film, genre wise, is because One Cut of the Dead is a film within a film within a film (and, if you count the end credits showing the behind the scenes of the actual production, it goes even a layer deeper than that). The opening act is a one-shot, a literal single take following a film crew trying to make a zombie film. Chinatsu (Yuzuki Akiyama) is confronted by her zombie boyfriend, Ko (Kazuaki Nagaya), and has to decide if she’s going to kill him before he kills her. But her performance is interrupted when the director, Takayuki (Takayuki Hamatsu), starts screaming at her about her performance. The crew breaks while the director goes to cool off, and then suddenly they’re attacked by zombies because, apparently, the abandoned water treatment plant was where the Japanese government experimented on people decades prior.

We follow Chinatsu through her whole adventure, surviving the various zombies that come her way as her companions get felled one by one. It all ends with a lovely tracking shot up into the sky while the credits roll, and we fade to white. But that’s when the first twist happens because we then just back to a few months prior to the adventure we just watched where we learn that Takayuki is actually the director on a film called One Cut of the Dead, which is a movie about a crew making a film called One Cut of the Dead, and what we just watched was the film within the film. Then we get to watch how this crew put the whole production together, from conception to creation, and it’s fantastic.

This is why it’s so hard to classify One Cut of the Dead, of course. Because we start with a zombie film, a single continuous take of Chinatsu getting chased around the factory by zombies, it’s technically a zombie movie for its whole first act. But then everything else that comes after, well, isn’t. The artifice is stripped away (to a degree) and suddenly we’re watching a behind-the-scenes comedy of errors as this crew of B-list actors and a C-list director have to try and get this single, continuous take film to work. And, honestly, the next two acts of the film are even better than the first.

We could really segment this film into three parts. There’s the opening movie, which lasts for 36 minutes and is, honestly, a marvel of single-shot filmmaking. Then there’s the second act, where we meet the various people behind the scenes and learn how this whole idea came together. Finally we get to the day of shooting, when a number of things go wrong and the crew, in and around filming, have to figure out how to improvise the whole production together so it leads to a smooth final work. And the fact that they pull it off is even more investing than the opening zombie film we watched at the start.

It’s almost a rug-pull kind of film, something on the order of From Dusk Till Dawn or Predator. You’re introduced to one kind of film, but then, at a certain point, everything you thought you knew changed and you’re suddenly thrust into a different kind of movie. But One Cut of the Dead is also the exact inverse of those other rug-pull features because instead of going from normal into horror, like those movies, this film goes from horror into hilarious reality. It sets up expectations for horror and then yanks those out and deflates it, but because of its splashy and interesting opening shot, you’re actually more invested in seeing how it all worked out. It’s quite the trick, and I’m so impressed by it.

With all that said, I wouldn’t call the film perfect. Because of its setup, and with essentially getting two to three versions of each character in the film, the movie isn’t able to spend a lot of time on each of its main characters so we can really invest in them. Chinatsu aka Aika Matsumoto and Ko aka Kazuaki Kamiya both come across as idol stars, simply there for their careers and that’s the end of their development. Perhaps just having that alone means more for the characters if you’re Japanese, and deeper into idol culture, but for an American watching the film, these two feel shallow, almost vapid.

We also have a drunk actor, Manabu Hosoda (Manabu Hosoi), who is there more as comedic relief even if he has a story that would seem to put him on a redemption arc. And there’s a pair of camera operators who have a bickering back and forth that doesn’t resolve itself via character development but, instead, through happenstance. Deep down I would have liked more for all of these people instead of all of them essentially acting like pieces to be moved around a board. Obviously there’s only so much time that can be devoted to characters in a film setup like this, but if we’re going to be picky, this is what stood out to me the most.

And these characters stand in contrast to who eventually become our actual main characters: the director, Takayuki, and his daughter, Mao Higurashi (Mao). Takayuki and Mao have a strained relationship for… some reason (which isn’t actually developed in the film at all). She wants to be a director, like him, but she doesn’t respect him for some reason (again, maybe it makes more sense if you’re Japanese). But through the production of this film, and her stepping up to help co-direct when things go off the rails, father and daughter bond. It’s a nice story and adds a good cap to the whole film. This is the kind of development I want, and I really wish we got that more for the other characters as well.

Still, I consider these minor quibbles for the overall production because what it’s able to do is so damn good. A film within a film within a film that builds and builds and builds is interesting enough, but to do it all after first delivering on an amazing single, continuous shot at the opening of the film just makes everything that comes after even better. One Cut of the Dead manages to deliver not just one but two solid films from completely different genres, and it does it all in a way that links everything together in a satisfying whole. It’s a zombie film unlike anything I’ve seen before, and it’s easily one of the best recent works of the genre. And then it becomes something else and is just as good.

Seriously, I really think this is the kind of film that could pull in all kinds of viewers, from those that like horror to those that want something else. Everyone can find something interesting in this film, and the way it’s structured allows it to deliver on all kinds of promises. If you haven’t seen it before you owe it to yourself to get some friends together and watch One Cut of the Dead. It’s weird and good and never stops reinventing. It’s a full package unlike just about anything you’ve seen before, so go watch it now.