AFI FEST Los Angeles International Film Festival 2009

Though famed at home for his wacky comedies, the 45-year-old Japanese actor/director Sabu remains virtually unknown in the US. His latest, inspired by a 1929 left-wing agitprop novel that became sensationally popular after being translated into Manga genre graphic fiction, veers in striking, politically motivated new directions while retaining moments of his outlandish brand of humor. The film follows the workers on a crab-canning ship who are brutally, mercilessly exploited by callous corporate bosses. Shiro, an enigma among them, doesn’t complain or lament, but he does suggest they regain their dignity. First, he proposes mass suicide (in a scene that Sabu, amazingly, manages to mutate into slapstick comedy). After Shiro and a buddy are rescued at sea by a Russian ship, Sabu choreographs an astonishing dance sequence. How to describe KANIKOSEN’s strange splendors? Imagine Sergei Eisenstein put into a blender with Busby Berkeley.

–Rose Kuo