Zom 100 Bucket list of the Dead Review: ( ゾン100 ～ゾンビになるまでにしたい100のこと～) Directed by Yusuke Ishida and written by Tatsuro Mishima, here comes the live-action feature based on the hit manga series penned by Haro Aso. It stars Eiji Akaso as Akira Tendo, Mai Shiraishi as Shizuka, Shuntaro Yanagi as Kencho as the titular trio charging ahead against the zombie army. Yui Ichikawa, Mayo Kawasaki, Akari Hayami and others were also seen in pivotal roles.
The survival horror series had recently received an anime adaptation that has just crossed a few handful episodes, but has already won over the audience. The Japanese comedy flick with a tinge of horror (if you’d like to call it that) has a runtime of 129 minutes, with English subtitles available on Netflix.
Zom 100 Bucket List of the Dead Movie Review Contains Mild Spoilers
Zom 100 Bucket list of the Dead Review: Discussion
Opening up with a stark comparison between the zombie-like corporate slave cycle and an adrenaline drive survival against a real zombie apocalypse, the movie introduces us to Akira Tendo, a young man starting out with his first job in the adult world after living his highs through his solid American football dream as the star player.
Commencing the new phase of his life, he puts all his energy and joys into the change, believing it to turn around everything for the better, but it ultimately only reduces his being into a corporate drone working around the clock. With a zombie apocalypse breaking out in the middle of nowhere (causes unknown), a regular person would fear for their life, but Tendo exceptionally takes a different course in rejoicing at the freedom of not having to go to work anymore.
As can be perceived from the get go, the premise catches Akaso’s character as a living zombie with his head stuck in his office cubicle all the time. What could’ve lifted off the ground with an unconventional hilarious trivialisation of the doomsday situation, eventually heads off for its own doom in the end.
Regardless of how many bad zombie movies have been in the making in the last few years, their concept has always intrigued me owing to how the basic pillars of the concept always put things into perspective, and kick in an absurdist existential crisis in one’s minds. On a lighter note, they also get you to wonder how being athletically agile is one of the prime ways we can save ourselves if such a scenario were to come to life in reality as well.
Attempting to phrase a moral question against the 24/7 workaholic hustle culture, the movie breaks in with hilarity by threading in mindless interventions to poke fun on our reality. And while these words may make the whole thing seem larger than life, the movie throws it all away and becomes a joke itself. Bright and uplifting soundtracks play while Kendo completes his Wishlist with zombies chasing after him in the background. The dreamy montage is barely entertaining up till the point you realise that the film has nothing to offer beyond that.
Many other content releases pertaining to this theme have largely led solemn discussions and trajectories or either been portrayed as parodies altogether, Zom 100 tries to achieve a middle ground but gradually turns into a mindless concoction. The movie almost seems to be going though mood swings and its visualisation makes you question if you’ve been watching the same movie all this while or not.
Treating the end of the world scenario flippantly, or trivialising it is one thing, but completely forgetting it is another. And so, this film again ends up proving that some things are better left alone as anime adaptations, which is also a direct jab at the live-action format itself since they somehow turn everything into caricatures, while the animated counterparts have proven to take a more serious and mature route.
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Nowadays, stories are not able to settle down with the appropriate runtime for their narratives. Many films end up being too rushed or inadequate, leaving us to crave for a better series adaptation, whereas web series stretched out beyond their elasticity make us believe that they could’ve done better as movies. The Zom 100 Netflix film lies in that questionable grey area as well. Even though I haven’t yet watched the anime series, I still feel that I can vouch for it more than I can bring up this movie in talks about zombie-led storylines.
It’s a frustratingly questionable addition to the catalogue that simply has nothing to offer. Despite having such an intriguing idea at its foundation, the movie just throws everything all out of the park with a flat representation and redundant characters. No matter how ugly (not in the gory sense) zombie movies have been before this, I’ve still found a piece of my heart rooting for the characters, but here it’s just not possible to do that.
It also seems that the movie’s been put together by patching up disjoints bits and scenes that simply don’t go together holistically. Presented as a too soft adaptation, with mild scenes of nude zombies roaming around in the initial half, neither of this is what the movie needs to carry off the heavy concept that could’ve done wonders otherwise.
The horribly manufactured monster at the end vs a sloppy power rangers get-up has got to be the worst out of everything. Cartoons have better storytelling tactics and strategies, but this film somehow keeps getting worse and worse, leaving you behind with the joke it is that only gets eye rolls in the end.
Zom 100 Movie: Final Thoughts
Now I’m all the more interested in watching the anime to finally be able to compare what levels of butchery have reduced this adaption into a pile of nothingness. They’ve pulled out the archetypes of an average guy wanting to be bigger than himself and aspiring to save everyone along this path, his best friend and a loner kickass vigilante, who just happen to connect despite their initial differences, but we never know why, which happened to be the case for everything in the film.
With the corporate slave cycle now having turned into a universal phenomenon which everyone can connect to, this movie lacks in every aspect to talk about anything. Even the gag-worthy quips are loose and unfound, and I would not recommend this release to anyone, especially not anime fans.
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead is now streaming on Netflix. Read our review of the Zom 100 anime premiere here.