Miss zombie (2013)

Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: zombie, life and death
Cast: Komatsu Ayaka, Togashi Makoto,  Tezuka Toru, Onishi Riku, Suruga Taro, Serizawa Tateto, Yamauchi Takaya,
Synopsis: Story is set in the future. One day Teramoto family receives delivery of a big cage - containing gun for safety, instruction manual and a female zombie. It is time when zombie-virus has leaked, but every zombie has a level of how much it still is similar to humans. Shara who is made into a servant at the household is a level 1 zombie, meaning that she is close to normal human that she used to be.
Rating: 5/5
Another great movie from SABU. Before the movie started on the festival a man who had selected the movie for this festival said that he thinks of it as SABU's big comeback movie after "failing" with "Kanikosen" - I do not not think it is right, because I think "Troubleman" was really great too, but maybe they did not count it, because it was a drama. In every way, "Miss zombie" takes back SABU's old style - mind**** and no bright-side.

The star is Komatsu Ayaka. As I have told you before - a great actress is actress who is able to play out one of a kind characters. That is exactly what she does. She does not have a single line in the movie, but you can feel everything Shara is going through. She cannot feel physical pain, but due to still being similar to human, she can feel emotional pain and that is hurting much more than anything else. I teared up in every scene she was watching an old photo of herself or when she was sewing her skin back together. Despite being a zombie, she is still mentally human. If zombie-apocalypse ever happens and you make a pet out of a zombie, then the movie gives a great tip. She is not allowed to eat meat, because no one can predict the outcome, so she is made into vegetarian. The tip is: Always feed your zombie with good quality vege-foods or she will go crazy!  I really liked how Shara was on good terms with little boy, because they looked like brother and sister.

The another woman in the movie is the wife Shizuko. With things happening Shizuko turned into more half-dead-like than Shara from all stress and depression. She is a character who changes the most with the movie. Her views and thoughts change as her perfect ordinary life takes a turn to worse. Well, I think that every woman would go crazy in her situation, but I think that rather than being blue all the time, fighting back should change more things. At first Shizuko tries to be calm and balaced all the time, but desperate times need desperate measures which leads to too much desperation in one sentence.

Dr. Teramoto who is the family head is a complicated person. He tries to look like he is the boss of the situation, but actually he is just following others. He is really easily influenced. Even the thought of taking a zombie into house was the idea of his friend, who for some unknown reason never came to pick her up. I find him just as sick as the workers, with the difference that he was willing to leave everything behind and for Shara he gave an opportunity to turn the table around.
The last characters are the workers. They show that man's insanity and lust has no boundaries. They do what they want and take advantages of weaker ones. It is really sick. Not to mention that things what they do, happen in real life to many women.
The story puts a big emphasis on mother-child relationship. Motherly instincts are something that are really powerful and some mothers have done more than crazy things for a child before. Motherly instincts are what play the most important part in Shara's nature and Shizuko's actions.
The movie is filmed in black-and-white and only comes colored for some time in the end.
What to say? I love SABU's films and this is another one to love, but I warn you that the film has some really disturbing sounds so it is better not to listen through earphones or headphones.

SPOILER-review: The end is really astonishing. It made me cry so much, because they all just wanted their ordinary lives back, yet they knew it was impossible. For Shara to shoot herself, shows exactly how much she was still an human to understand that zombie-life is something that she does not want.