LEO IMAMURA, NATSUKO, YUTAKA KYAN, AND ROCKO ZVENBERGEN IN THE GESUIDOUZKENICHI UGANA: THE GESUIDOUZ (2024) JAPAN CUTS 2025TRAILERSaga of a punk band in JapanChristopher Guest, Cameron Crowe, and Aki Kaurismäki are mentioned as kindred spirits for the Kenichi Ugana of this film about a Japanese horror-themed punk group whose lead singer Hanako (Natsuko), who is 26 , is convinced she balongs to the 27 Club (picures of Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobainm are always on her wall) and will die when this year of her life ends. She is counting down to her twenty-seventh birthday, when she thinks she and her band, the Gesuidouz, will be no more. Hence the pressure to come up with somehthing great and worthy of Glastonbury, the music festival she aspires to be invited to. Is this film worthy of you? Yes, if you love punk bands and horror (an inspiration of theirs) and quirky little films, it definitely is. The look is bright and charming, the energy of the cast is strong, and the music is a blast. Even though the little band saga movie is familiar by now, this is a fresh entry.
Things begin on a down note, as they must. Hanako's depression and creative block, the news from their manager (Yuya Endo) that their records aren't selling and their concert's aren't drawing an audience. They know this: we glimpse a concert where there are only one or two people in attendance. The manager suggests they go out into the country. Maybe they will find inspiration there. And they apparently do, receiving a house and support from a government program encouraging movement to the country--plus an old country woman with a big smile who is their hostess. She never understands their music, but she wants to help them make it. Also gifted to them is a Shiba Inu dog who talks, butonly to give advice, named after the king of silence, John Cage (a nice note). Yes, he talks: there is an element of magic realism and there is a cassette tape with arms and legs that also talks which the director has identified as a "creature puppet" and very "analog." In the background, there are real actors playing faithful young urban fans, even from the beginning, though we don't meet any.
A big strain here is the creative process. Hanaka is pushed by the manager to come up with a winning new song, and she has great difficulty doing this. Her way of making a song is to draw phrases on large sheets of Japanese paper with brush and sumi ink, in the traditional way, with very large characters vvery roughly drawn. She arranges these around the room. Somehow I think more could have been made of this business, but it is, nonetheless, wonderfully visual just as it is.
Siddhant Adlakha's
Variety review (at Toronto Film Festival's "Midnight Madness"), Sept. 12, 2024. calls this a "sardonic genre comedy." He also says "North American midnight movie fans who frequent the likes of Montreal’s Fantasia Fest and Austin’s Fantastic Fest will find themselves represented both physically and spiritually." Icidentally, after the band becomes a hit, there are brief passages of tentimonials from US and at even greater length French Canadian fans. Adlakha says this film "would make a fitting double feature with Swedish young punk movie
We Are the Best!. NIce idea, though Lukas Moodyson is a hard act follow. I also thought of Niccolò Falsetti's
Margini, from the 2023 Open Roads Italian film series.
The Gesuidouz's combination of wild, desperate spirit and good humor is it own special one.
The Gesuidoux ("Guest House"), 94 min., premiered Sept. 5, 2024 at Toronto, appearing also at Sitges, Kaohsiung, Leeds, Hong Kong, Tokyo FILMeX, Jeonju, and Fantasy Filmfest in Germany. Screened for this review as part of the July 10-20, 2025.
SHOWTIME:
July 11, 2025
9:00 pm
In-Person Event
FAQ
Search
Login
