One Cut of the Dead 2017

One cut of the dead is a 2018 film by Japanese director Shinichiro Ueda. It was made with a budget of $25,000 and went on to make $31.2 million in worldwide box office sales.  I’ve never seen anything like this film. I would recommend it to anyone who has ever tried to make a film before as everyone who has knows that when your on set something if not everything will go wrong. Imagine being tasked with creating a zombie film about a camera crew making a zombie film, where real zombies start to invade the set and Not only is this one shot, and one take, but that one take is being broadcast live throughout Japan. Sounds like one of the hardest films to make every and is a terrifying thought.  Well obviously this film is filled with mistakes, awkward acting and weird camera choices. As I was watching it I started to get a little bored and wrote down a couple of notes about it.  “Acting felt like a stage production”  “Got a bit boring after 30 minutes where we are just following the girl limping around, running away from zombies and then the director would jump in and shout action like a crazy person.” “Dunno why they acknowledge the camera man coz it just made there too many questions. Why weren’t any of the zombies attacking him? Why wasn’t he helping? Why weren’t they getting more mad at him for filming and not helping? It’s not weird that he’s filming it’s more weird that they aren’t mad at him for filming.” “Purposely cheesy at times which is quite funny. The rooftop scene at the end of the first act where the crazy director is filming the same scene as the start except it’s real and then gets mad at her for not following the script was funny.”  In hindsight this may make me look a bit dumb, as in the second act all my questions were answered. The second act is what makes this film so good but the reason it’s good is a big spoiler for the film and I recommend just watching it for yourself and if you don’t like it at the start hold out for act 2.  The second half of this film isn’t one take and looks a little less bad. In fact it feels like a completely different film and it’s about the director making this film. It’s about his relationship with his family and about his job, where he is being forced to make a live one cut zombie film.  The film then becomes about film making and about directing and I really enjoyed it. It explains every weird thing about the film and shows what went wrong while filming that caused it. Was really cool to see the same film again but from a film makers perspective, explaining to us why every little weird thing you didn’t like about it was in it. Really the film is about how difficult it is to make a film, and how wrong everything goes on a set no matter how much planning you do.  Some of the acting was cheesy but only in a funny Japanese way, and obviously everything got taken down a notch in the second half of the film.  The ending was really satisfying, seeing them complete the film and and lie back in relief and exhaustion, it really feels like you’ve gone on a journey with them and it had me feeling a bit emotional. I’m not the biggest fan of zombie films so I’m glad this wasn’t just a dumb horror, I really enjoyed it and would recommend.  8.4/10