PORTAL
014 |SCIFINOW IS SITTING in
a nondescript white room in a
nondescript building in Tokyo, a
stone’s throw from the Yamanote
rail line that’s the city’s main
artery. Thousands of commuters
hurtle past here each day, not
giving this building a thought. But
many would know the fi lm born
here, a zombie comedy with a
twist you haven’t seen before:
One Cut Of The Dead.
A huge sleeper hit in Japan,
the fi lm enjoyed standing ovations
and rave reviews round the
world, and comes to cinemas
and home formats this January.
Some readers will have seen it
already but we hope they’re not
spoiling the fi lm as One Cut’s
success owes much to cunning
story sidesteps, and to how
its twists work in tandem withits human characters, a band
of disorganised but spirited
fi lmmakers chasing or being
chased by zombies.
We’re in Enbu Seminar, an
acting and directing school where
the One Cut team conjured the
fi lm into being. “When planning
began, nothing was settled,”
explains Shinichiro Ueda, looking
so young in his One Cut T-shirt
that we wonder if cinemas allow
him into his own fi lm. “I used my
gut feeling as to who would suit
the project and then chose my
actors. They were awkward but
somehow interesting.”
The fi rst part of the fi lm involves
the fi lmmaker characters in an
abandoned water fi ltration plant.
They’re shooting a fi lm-in-a-fi lm
about (what else?) zombies, when
they’re interrupted by the realJapanese horror comedy One Cut Of The Dead is one of the year’s best surprises
FOUND FOOTAGE IS (UN)DEAD
WORDS TOM ARDENshambling thing. While this part
of the fi lm seems to be the most
conventional it’s still technically
audacious, as the whole
37-minute sequence is fi lmed as a
continuous camera take. Welles
and Scorsese, eat your hearts
out, or let zombies do it for you.
The ‘one cut’ sequence, plus
a later part of the fi lm, was
indeed fi lmed in an abandoned
purifi cation plant, in the city of
Mito north of Tokyo. “My crew
found it,” says Ueda. “It was the
fi rst place on our location hunt...
I felt we would be hard pushed
to fi nd a better place.”
However, the plant still
wasn’t exactly ideal.
“It did not have any
electricity, which we
needed for lighting...
We have aW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U Krainy season in Japan, which
coincided with the fi lming so it
was pouring rain most of the
time. That building had a sort of
sunken level so it was always full
of water. Before fi lming we all
mucked in to get rid of the water
and then we could start work. It
was also quite a job cleaning up
the fake blood, as after the ‘one
cut’ shot it was everywhere.”
One Cut celebrates
improvisation, which was
required as much of the real
fi lm-makers as it was of the
characters. “The blood
splashing on the camera
lens during the ‘one cut’
sequence is purely
accidental,” Ueda
reveals.
“The scene
where theI felt we would be hard pushed
to fi nd a better place.”
However, the plant still
wasn’t exactly ideal.
“It did not have any
electricity, which we
needed for lighting...W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U Kcharacters. “The blood
splashing on the camera
lens during the ‘one cut’
sequence is purely
accidental,” Ueda
reveals.
“The scene
where the