is a 2006 Japanese

zombie comedy Zombie comedy, often called zom com or zomedy, is a film genre that aims to blend zombie horror motifs with slapstick comedy as well as morbid humor. History The earliest roots of the genre can be found in Jean Yarbrough's '' King of the Zom ...

directed by

Naoyuki Tomomatsu (born 1967) is a People of Japan, Japanese film director and screenwriter who has worked in the pink film and horror genres. Life and career Tomomatsu was born in Osaka, Japan in 1967. He was interested in manga and film from high school and st ...

, written by Naoyuki Tomomatsu and Masami Teranishi, and starring Miyû Watase,

Mihiro , real name , is a Japanese actress, singer, fiction writer, television personality and former adult video (AV) actress. Life and career Mihiro was born in Niigata prefecture on May 19, 1982. She began a career as a softcore nude model as early ...

, Kenji Arai, Yû Machimura, Masayuki Hase, and Norman England. Mihiro plays a spoiled pop singer who barricades herself in a hotel with several soldiers during a zombie outbreak.

Plot

On a routine training exercise, soldiers from the

Japan Self-Defense Forces The are the military forces of Japan. Established in 1954, the JSDF comprises the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. They are controlled by the Ministry of Defense ...

encounter a

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO) is an object or phenomenon seen in the sky but not yet identified or explained. The term was coined when United States Air Force (USAF) investigations into flying saucers found too broad a range of shapes ...

that releases strange radiation on a town. When the inhabitants turn into zombies, the soldiers and several survivors, including a spoiled pop singer, barricade themselves in a hotel and attempt to survive the assault.

Cast

* Miyû Watase as Yuri Aso *

as Hitomi * Kenji Arai as Captain * Yû Machimura * Masayuki Hase *

Norman England The territory today known as England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk have indicated.; "Earliest footprints outside Africa discovered in Norfolk" (2014). B ...

* Jun Yamasaki as Hayakawa

Release

''Zombie Self-Defense Force'' premiered at Dead by Dawn in Edinburgh on April 23, 2006. It was released on DVD in Japan on April 25, 2006.

ADV Films A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Gr ...

released it in the United States on October 13, 2009.

Reception

Rodney Perkins of

Twitch Film ScreenAnarchy, previously known as Twitch Film or Twitch, is a Canadian English-language website featuring news and reviews of mainly international, independent and cult films. The website was founded in 2004 by Todd Brown. In addition to films, ...

called it an uneven

splatter film A splatter film is a subgenre of horror films that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, usually through the use of special effects, display a fascination with the vulnerability of the human body a ...

made in the style of ''

Evil Dead II ''Evil Dead II'' (also known in publicity materials as ''Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn'') is a 1987 American comedy horror film directed by Sam Raimi, who co-wrote it with Scott Spiegel. The second installment in the ''Evil Dead'' film series, i ...

'' and ''

Braindead ''BrainDead'' is an American political satire science fiction comedy-drama television series created by Robert and Michelle King. The series stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Laurel Healy, a documentary film-maker who takes a job working for h ...

''. Bill Gibron of

DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...

rated it 3.5/5 stars and called it "a bucket full of bile topped off with a crazy comedic take on cannibalism" that is "meant to be stupid and weird and eccentric". David Johnson of

DVD Verdict DVD Verdict was a judicial-themed website for DVD reviews. The site was founded in 1999. The editor-in-chief was Michael Stailey, who owned the website between 2004 and 2016, and the site employed a large editorial staff of critics, whose revie ...

wrote that although it equals ''Braindead'' in gore, it is not as well-executed. Writing in ''The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia'', academic

Peter Dendle Peter Dendle is a professor of English at Penn State Mont Alto, teaching classes on folklore, 20th and 21st century representations of the Middle Ages, Old and Middle English (language and literature), and the monstrous (in film, folklore, and ...

called it "a series of cheap homages and shock scenes delivered with underfunded cartoon aesthetics."

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0879265 2006 films 2006 horror films 2000s Japanese films Japanese comedy horror films Japanese independent films Japanese splatter films Japanese zombie films Zombie comedy films