One Cut of the Dead


One Cut of the Dead is a 2017 Japanese zombie comedy film written and directed by Shin'ichirô Ueda.
Made with a low budget of with a cast of unknown actors, the film opened in Japan in a small theatre for a six day run. Following its international success at its screening at the Udine Film Festival, the film began getting wider exposure, including a re-release in Japan. It grossed US $27,935,711 in Japan and worldwide, making box office history by earning over a thousand times its budget. The film also received universal acclaim from critics, who praised its originality, writing and humor.

Premise

The cast and crew of a low-budget zombie film called One Cut of the Dead are shooting at an abandoned water filtration plant. The director, Higurashi, argues with actors and eventually abandons them. A real zombie apocalypse then begins to the delight of Higurashi, who insists that the camera operator continue filming.

Cast

Filmmaker Shin'ichirô Ueda directed, edited, and wrote the script for One Cut of the Dead. Ueda, an independent filmmaker, had previously made several short films. For the film, he stated that One Cut of the Dead was partially inspired by Ryoichi Wada's stage play, Ghost in the Box, which Ueda had seen five years prior. Wada, a playwright and theater director, had presented Ghost in the Box from 2011 to 2014.
To make his film, Ueda worked with the Enbu Seminar drama school in Tokyo. Enbu Seminar not only produced the film, but also hosted the acting workshops that Ueda used to help cast its actors, most of them unknowns. According to actress Yuzuki Akiyama, the workshop lasted for two months. She had previously worked with Ueda on his 2011 short film, Dreaming Novelist.
Filming for One Cut of the Dead took place over the course of eight days in June 2017. It was shot at a water filtration plant in Mito, Ibaraki that had been abandoned. Akiyama described the filming process as "very enjoyable but also pretty exhausting", due to the pressure to get a long take right. The long take in particular, a 37-minute-long continuous shot of the zombie film, took six takes.
One Cut of the Dead was made for , and was partially crowdfunded. After the eight days of shooting, it took four months for Ueda to edit the film.

Release

Producer and Enbu Seminar president Koji Ichihashi stated that the initial target for the film to break even was 5,000 admissions. One Cut of the Dead opened in Japan in an 84-seat Tokyo art house theater with an initial theatrical run of six days. The film began garnering international attention after it became the runner-up in the audience vote at the Udine Far East Film Festival. Of the films screening at Udine, it received a standing ovation and the Audience Award at the Udine Far East Film Festival in year 2018.
After receiving positive reviews outside of Japan, the film was released in three cinemas in Tokyo in June with discounts for an audience in zombie costumes to help the film gain attention. Asmik Ace stepped in to co-distribute the film, giving it a wider release in July. It was showing at around 200 screens in Japan by March 2018 where it had officially grossed.

Reception

Box office

In Japan, the film sold 2,149,449 tickets and grossed in 136 days. It became the seventh highest-grossing domestic film of 2018, grossing at the Japanese box office. It made box office history by earning over a thousand times its budget.
Overseas, the film grossed NT$53million in Taiwan, in Hong Kong, $154,123 in South Korea, $52,406 in the United States and Canada, and $2,903 in Iceland, for a worldwide total of.

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 100% Certified Fresh approval rating based on 83 reviews, with an average rating of 8.57/10. The site's critical consensus states, "Brainy and bloody in equal measure, One Cut of the Dead reanimates the moribund zombie genre with a refreshing blend of formal daring and clever satire." Metacritic reports an 86 out of 100 score, based on 14 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Writing for Variety, Richard Kuipers declared the film to be a "marvelously inventive horror-comedy breathes new life into the zombie genre", and attributed its success to "its irresistibly bouncy spirit it positively sparkles with the infectious “C’mon everyone, let’s put on a show!” enthusiasm that’s served the movies so well since the days of Andy Hardy." Elizabeth Kerr of The Hollywood Reporter found the film to be "a breezy and often laugh-out-loud hilarious zombie comedy", noting that although the film "sags in the second act as it sets up the third, it’s not so much that it loses all the steam it generated out of the gate." David Ehrlich of IndieWire, opined that the film was "so heartfelt and hilarious that it’s easy to forgive the contrivances that hold it together, and to overlook how transparently Ueda reverse-engineers most of his best gags. Seemingly unimportant details in the film’s sluggish middle section blossom into killer jokes some 30 minutes later"

Controversy

In August 2018, Ryoichi Wada gave an interview where he stated that One Cut of the Dead was an adaptation of Ghost in the Box, and that he was consulting with his legal representatives. The month before, Wada had remarked on social media that he enjoyed the film. Ueda acknowledged that Ghost in the Box was an inspiration for his film, but denied that he plagiarized the play. Both Ueda and Wada eventually came to an agreement, crediting Wada and acknowledging Ghost in the Box in One Cut of the Dead's credits.

Awards

Sequel

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in Japan, Ueda decided to create a short film, One Cut of the Dead Mission: Remote, that would act as a sequel to One Cut of the Dead. The filmmaker wanted to create something that would lighten the mood during the pandemic, stating, "I started to wonder if there was anything positive I could do to try to put a smile on people’s faces through some light form of entertainment." After contacting the actors to confirm they would be able to reprise their role, Ueda wrote the script in one night, and gave the actors instructions via video conference. The actors were instructed to take selfie footage while in-character, then send the footage to the director via a smartphone messaging app. In addition, Ueda asked people on social media to upload video of themselves dancing to include in the movie.
The overall production of One Cut of the Dead Mission: Remote took place in around a month. It was uploaded to YouTube for people to watch for free on May 1, 2020.