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Ika resuraa (2004) More at IMDbPro »

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Not quite like anything else!, 13 July 2006
7/10
Author: Simon Booth from UK

OK, make a list of all the things you've never seen a movie about.

Keep going...

Keep going...

OK, stop.

Now, that's quite an impressive list, but I bet you $5 it doesn't include "A Pro-wrestling Squid"! Right? 'cause if you haven't seen CALAMARI WRESTLER, there's no way you would ever conceive of CALAMARI WRESTLER... unless you're writer/director Kawasaki Minoru, apparently! Taguchi finally achieves his dream when he knocks out his opponent to claim the Japan Pro Wrestling championship... but he barely has time to hold up the belt when it is grasped from his hands by... a giant squid. The squid then knocks him out cold and claims the championship for his own. Who is this wrestling squid? Where did he come from? Should giant squid be allowed to fight in the Japan Pro-Wrestling league? The leaders of the industry think no, but Taguchi feels he must have a real match with the squid or he'll never feel like a true champion, and the squid needs a proper match so that he can truly claim the championship himself. Will the public accept a cephalopod as a wrestler? CALAMARI WRESTLER is basically a "boxing movie", and follows most of the conventions of the genre... with the exception of species. There's also a bit of a love triangle, and some social commentary on the state of Japan in the modern age. It's shot on video and features some of the worst acting ever committed to screen... but it's about a giant wrestling squid! And that's just cool :-) It's very very silly indeed, and really quite amusing - and even quite touching at times. The rubber suits for the squid and some other characters who enter the plot are pretty well done... though they never actually look like anything other than a man in a rubber suit, which is part of their charm.

Cheap and cheerful, and something that could only have emerged from Japan... not quite brilliant, but interesting enough to receive a recommendation... especially if you're feeling that your cinematic diet is starting to feel a bit bland :-)

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Santo Sushi? Wh-ah hunh?, 7 August 2005
8/10
Author: cramsay-2 from Portland, OR

After seeing this delightful little film, the only way I can think of to describe it is as a Santo (Mexican wrestling) movie set in the weird, weird world of a Japanese cartoon sushi menu. In fact it follows the typical Santo film formula to a T: orphans, love interest, entertaining the children, fighting for the glory of the sport of wrestling. Only the wrestler is a giant squid.

Oh, and the Squilla Boxer is a Mantis Shrimp, and they really do have a punch as fast as a bullet. The biology is surprisingly accurate, such as pointing out that invertebrates are naturally good wrestlers because they can get out of any hold. I guess that shouldn't be surprising coming from a Japanese film, though.

If you love sushi, cephalopods, magical realism and wrestling, this is the film for you! (if you can find it)

Charming, and very, very odd.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Ultraman meets Pro Wrestling, it had to happen., 23 August 2006
8/10
Author: Chung Mo from NYC

It's surprising that this idea wasn't done earlier. Given that your average Japanese "Kaiju" TV show is all about guys in monster suits wrestling with each other.

A giant squid (in wrestling boots) humiliates the champion wrestler of Japan. The only recourse is a rematch but how can a human wrestle with a giant talking invertebrate? There are no bones to grapple. Is the squid a reincarnation of the previous champion and who is the squid's mysterious trainer? How far is the champion willing to go to defend his honor? Will his fiancé fall in love with the squid?

A delight to watch. The entire cast is having a great time, one actor can't keep a smile off his face. The first half hour is brilliant, the remainder great fun. Lots of jokes that translate well into English. The fights are silly but not much sillier than your average pro wrestling match.

Interestingly, the rubber monster suits wrestling in a ring has been done here in the US for quite a while by the crazy performing group "Kaiju Big Battel", look them up.

Recommended, especially to wrestling fans and Japanese monster fans.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Fun, 12 October 2006
7/10
Author: (thecrow22) from United States

I was looking through the video store a while back and my friend came across this little title, and just started laughing. The title alone is enough to make someone just ask "What the hell?" But, for the fun of it, I rented it and sat down to what ended up to be a very fun movie. The special effects(if you want to call them that) are god awful, but that is half the fun of the movie. Watching the Squid wrestle with humans, and other creatures as well is downright absurd, but as messed up as it is, it is a fun movie that really has no point other than to make viewer say "What the hell?" If you want to see a movie that is zany but tries its hardest to be serious at the same time, see this movie.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Glee Incarnate!, 11 October 2006
10/10
Author: OttoVonB from Switzerland

A wrestling championship is interrupted in its final seconds by a new challenger: a 6-foot Calamari! He wins the title and becomes the nation's mascot. Many also liken his style to a former champion. His opponent, seeking revenge, seeks to confront him again.

Rocky with a calamari thrown in might be an adequate pitch, but it barely does this film justice. "Calamari Wrestler" is a very knowing satire of the whole sports film genre, checking every cliché in the formula and turning it on its head by showing its silliness without ever resorting to sarcasm. Indeed, there is a moving earnestness to the film, because the premise is so ridiculous that it can allow itself to play it straight. Wrestling is also an inherently over-the-top sport, so throwing in a calamari (especially a latex one) isn't half as jarring as you would expect.

"Calamari Wrestler" deserves a 10, hands down, for its sheer silliness, novelty, unique appeal to squid fans (of which I am an unashamed member) and good heart. You can feel the love and fun of the creators in every frame. This is the kind of film you watch to laugh with your friends or lighten your mood when you feel a bit low.

90 Minutes of gleeful fun!

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Goofy, silly & fun !, 8 December 2004
Author: mike c from los angeles

Totally wacky pro-wrestling/sci-fi spoof. Giant squid crashes championship match & steals title belt.

Just too goofy, it's simply silly enough to keep you giggling till the end.

The low-tech costumes are perfect for the tone of the movie. Excellent performances by the human cast, well sorta. The fight scenes are hilarious, the squid is joined by an octopus & a Squilla(some kinda giant shrimp)... again the goofy costumes work great here, as wel as in in the scenes of sunsets and romance ;-) Then when it wasn't getting weird enough, there's an appearance by a boy-band.

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
"Baseketball" meets "Tampopo" and asks "Shall We Dance?", 9 September 2005
7/10
Author: wmjiii728 from United States

I never thought that a film set in the professional wrestling arena could be so entertaining on so many comic levels. From slapstick to irony, the artful deadpan acting and the multi-faceted script filled my livingroom with laughter.

Every time the reliance on the costumes began to irritate my sensibilities the intentional ambiguities and incongruities of the characterizations fractured my funny-bone.

Love is a many-tentacled thing for the lovely girlfriend who can't make up her mind and the comedy comes at the viewer from all directions: Love and loyalty, character and competition,fathers and sons, winners and losers, biology, gastronomy and sport-tainment are all satirized.

I think that this film should appeal to fans of wrestling, "The Iron Chef", "Finding Nemo", "Rocky", sci-fi and anyone who appreciates that humor knows no international boundaries.

The film is suitable for all audiences. Anyone who gets a fraction of the gags will be entertained. It would be a great Saturday night comedy for the whole family. An English language dub would eliminate the only barrier to the film's mass-appeal.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
At last, a film that actually made it worthwhile to have sat through Star Wars., 23 September 2006
9/10
Author: jjjjjjjjjjjjj-4 from Santa Rosa CA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Goddess, I sure love film festivals like the Hole In The Head festival in S.F. where I first saw this. I laughed out loud from start to finish, as did the rest of the audience.

This is a film about the values that are important to the characters & their society. Ultimately it is a film about family vs. modern society.

A comparison to "professional" wrestling is appropriate. The morality play, the hype, the biological enhancements of the participants, the utter fakery of its "sport" & "competition" of "pro" wrestling are all mirrored in C.W. It isn't a big step from the steroid enhanced stars of the WWWhatever to the crustacean enhanced stars of C.W.

The charm of the movie is how seriously it takes its subject matter, despite the ludicrous plot. The "love interlude" is both screamingly funny and truly touching. You want to believe in the characters.

I don't know how apt the comparison to Santo movies is, however. Although both C.W. and the Santo films include wrestling scenes (with monsters); the match wrestling scenes in Santo films are gratuitous and unrelated to plot. (p.s. I love Santo!). In C. W., match wrestling is both integral to the plot and of integral value to the characters. Compare to the scripted violence of "pro" wrestling, which claims to be "real", yet is so obviously fake to anyone who has ever wrestled. ("Pro" wrestlers are trained athletes: but they are actors, not wrestlers, when performing their stunts in the ring.)

I was & remained charmed by this film. No one I have shared it with has watched it without falling out of their seats in laughter.

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"does an octopus have a Medulla Oblongata?", 21 December 2008
7/10
Author: TheatreX from Louisville, KY

After seeing "Executive Koala", I thought I might want to see this too, being that they're by the same director, who seems to take fairly standard themes and stand them on their ear by populating his films with giant animals.

After a big wrestling match, the winner has the championship belt wrenched from his grasp by...gasp...a giant squid? Complete with wrestling boots, too. The squid draws a lot of interest from executives that would like it to "throw" the matches, but Squid don't play like that. Seems that perhaps this squid is the reincarnation of a boxer who died from a fatal illness a few years ago, and his girlfriend eventually realizes that it's not just a squid, it's HIM.

Things get weirder after an wrestling octopus comes on the scene, and a match touted as the "New Years Eve Seafood Smackdown" is scheduled. But in the meantime, something called Boxing Squilla appears on the scene....what the HELL is a Squilla? I had to look it up, it's a shrimp of some kind, but this is a big shrimp, and its punch is deadly...so how can a boxing crustacean get in on the action in a wrestling match? Hard to say. But there is a rather happy & touching ending....I guess.

Definitely goofy stuff, a fun time passer but nothing overly memorable or groundbreaking about this. The humor is not quite as rollicking as I would hope for with such a concept but it's still rather fun anyway. 7 out of 10.

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