Demon City Movie Review: Tarantinoesque fascination for gore without the filmmaking intelligence

Based on the manga Oni-Goroshi by Masamichi Kawabe, Demon City is oftentimes an absolute orgy of violence and gore. What starts off as a vaguely intriguing premise soon spirals into an out-and-out slash fest. The well shot film disappoints by presenting violence for violence’s sake. It attempts to couch itself as a revenge crime story, but that is just a ruse. The bloodshed is there to shock and thrill, not to further the plot in any conceivable way. Another frustrating thing about Seiji Tanaka’s film is that it offers precious little background information. There is no flashback or device that explains clearly why things are the way they are. To top it all off, scenes jump from one to the other in a mad dash to murderous climax, without enough continuity or common sense. There’s a myth central to the film about a demon who resurrects in the form of a person (maybe?) and goes on a killing spree, sparing no one in its wake. That demon, purportedly, is our lead character and feared hit man, Shûhei Sakata (Tôma Ikuta). Left for dead by a mysterious gang donning a range of ghoulish masks, they are bent on taking over the city. Why they come after Sakata isn’t explained. The leader makes it a point to acknowledge the latter in wiping out their main rivals, a powerful Yakuza syndicate. Are we to assume that Sakata was contracted by this group anonymously for the hit job? And now that their enemies are all cut into rotting pieces, they wish to eliminate the man who did their bidding? Also, why leave Sakata for dead instead of killing him outright? Unless one is deeply familiar with Kawabe’s graphic novel, these “inconsequential” details are to be ignored. You are to go along for the blood-soaked ride, that’s it. It is indeed confusing whether the story is supernatural or not? While on the surface, it may not really seem so, the fact that the vengeful hit man is near impossible to kill, makes me wonder.

Demon City begins with a man in a black jacket infiltrating a house full of powerful, armed criminals. In a matter of a few minutes, he brutally assassinates the dozen odd members with a cleaver. Bloody but more or less unharmed, he meets with an associate who hints that his hit man days are now coming to an end. Sakata heads home to his wife and young daughter. For the briefest of moments, his life appears idyllic. He even goes as far as to tell his wife that he will be searching from a new job, come the morrow. But here’s the thing about walking away from a non-regular line of work such as his. It follows you to the grave. Prior to dinner, the family is accosted by a set of masked men, all in the garb of different demons. They plan to eliminate Sakata, and make the deaths of the three-member household look like a murder-suicide. The larger play here is that the group has grand visions of controlling the city and its populace. Sakata has assassinated a rival Yakuza gang, and now, with him out the way, they can see things to fruition. The leader spouts some mumbo jumbo about a vengeful demon who resurrects every fifty years to destroy all in its path, and that he welcomes the day he will get to slay the beast.

Director – Seiji Tanaka

Cast – Tôma Ikuta, Ami Tôuma, Masahiro Higashide, Mai Kiryû, Matsuya Onoe, Tarô Suruga   

Streamer - Netflix

Demon City will be watched for its stunt choreography, wildly implausible one-man-army type fight scenes of carnage, and the endless buffet of mindless violence. It has a Tarantinoesque fascination for gore sans the overall filmmaking intelligence. The dark tone, the cinematography and the melodic metal score lulls you into a false sense of security at the very beginning. Are we in for a noir thriller? Sadly, it is a wasted film. The tropes are dated and predictable. Reason isn’t foremost in the minds of the makers. Why the masked men leave Sakata for dead, what happens in the interim twelve-year period of his coma or how he regains full fighting condition from his near-vegetative state are questions to be glossed over, of course. If your goal is to make it through, some things have to be accepted without argument. At least with a film like Carter, the action choreography was so brilliant that you could revel in its madness while disregarding the excuse for a plot. Demon City has potential, with its theme of a wronged hit man on a rampage, but the gaps in the story are far too wide to ignore. If you’re only in it to see a bunch of bad guys get maimed and battered, all the best to you!