another five pounds?

Nezulla The Rat Monster (2002)
Dir: Kanta Tagawa.
Cast: Daisuke Ryu, Yoshiyuki Kubota, Mika (the original Japanese Pink Ranger and ex of the Minisuka Police) Katsumura and Ayumi Tokitou.

Laugh now!

Three hip 'n' groovy teens are investigating a deserted warehouse looking for booze, fags and a good time (you could try the off-license or a disco but there you go) when they're viciously attacked by an unseen terror.....

Meanwhile in downtown Tokyo a mysterious, face paint and Quorn based virus has begun to infect the quite frankly terminally unlucky cities populace.

Those unfortunate to contract the disease are rounded up by soldiers and either locked in a big cupboard sans their shoes or shot in front of their kids whilst a stoic Japanese doctor looks on manfully.

At his side stands a frail looking soft skinned nurse doing her best 'it's a shame for them isn't it?' eyebrow acting whilst gazing at our heroic (if heroism included just standing by whilst folk get shot) young doc.

Thru' a series of flashbacks told using the ancient art of Origami (I wish) a fairly attractive female scientist tells us how, a few years earlier the evil US military (boo! hiss!) teamed up with a naive Japanese research firm in the hope of finding a way to genetically engineer soldiers with an immunity to every biological and bacterial agent known to man (Don't you just love an easy and simple work outline?).

Nice smooth hands, face of fuck.

Unfortunately (as is always the way in these situations) the genetically altered bubonic plague virus that the scientists have been feeding the lab rats on causes one of the pesky rodents to grow to man size, shed its fur and fuck off into the sewers squeaking loudly.

And like a girl.

But not before it's eaten most of the research team obviously.

Rather than fill in loads of pesky insurance forms and the like the folk involved reckon the best option is to just abandon the lab and hope no-one notices the big pink rat skulking about the town.

Everything's fine and dandy until the plague ridden rat gets a bout of violent wind that causes its internal gases to mutate into the aforementioned virus and spread to the nearby populace.

Do they mean us? They surely do.

Luckily for all those involved, Ratty's blood carries the antibodies that could cure the virus (probably) so a crack team of commandos (and bespectacled J-Pop cutie Ayumi Tokitou) are ordered to infiltrate the deserted labs and capture the killer rat before it's too late (too late for what? the virus is already out and that things been in the sewers for years....nothing like being laid back I guess).

Cue huge amounts of anti-American dialogue (including the classic "Damn those no-good white people") and the introduction of a strict and sexy Japanese woman in league with the evil Americans but, unfortunately very little monster mayhem.

Nezulla the arse pirate more like.

As if it couldn't get any worse Ms. Evil decides to tell everyone that she reckoned it would be a good laugh if her cohorts set a time bomb inside the complex (well, in Ratty's nest chamber to be precise) timed to go off in an hour or so.

The reasoning behind this?

Her American Employers would rather blow the shite out of everything than have to apologise to 'the dirty japs'.

See? told you.

It's a race against time, stilted dialogue, smoking and male bonding issues for our team as they set out to complete their mission before anything else comes to light that could make their day any worse.....Add to all this rat based tension a the cloying subplot regarding the manly doctors love for his nurse and you know you're onto a winner.

Kanta Tagawa's (alleged) inspiration for Bong Joon-Ho's modern classic The Host, Nezulla The Rat Monster has been languishing on the shelves (or more likely behind the bins) since 2002 only now have western audiences been deemed culturally aware enough to fully appreciate this modern classic of monster cinema.

Either that or it's been released to cynically cash in on the latter films success.

But who would believe that film companies would be so money hungry?

How I felt at this point in the movie.

Nezulla is a triumph of idea's over budget, from the fantastically false two piece monster suit (with buttons NOT zips) to the fact that all the killings appear oh so slightly off screen. But fear not monster fans, Nezulla does get to take part in the movies action at some points! It's just unfortunate that he spends his entire screen time either:

Skulking about in a corner.

Hissing in a corner whilst the human cast ignore/can't see him.

or

Indulging in drunken fisticuffs/attempting to sodomize the soldiers.

Which gives it the edge over AVP 2: Requiem I reckon.

"Shite in mah big toothy mooth!"