Deadball (Deddoboru) (2011) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Isolated Musical Score Trailer-x 6 for other films
Rating
Year Of Production	2011
Running Time	98:24
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Yudai Yamaguchi
Studio Distributor	Gryphon Entertainment	Starring	Tak Sakaguchi Yudai Yamaguchi Kai Atô Bobby Mickey Curtis Erina Junichi Gamou Miho Harita Mari Hoshino Akio Iwahara Takatsugu Iwama Lina Kazuto Nakamura
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Nobuhiko Morino

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Japanese dts 5.1 (1536Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Isolated Music Score Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes, its a Tak Sakaguchi film after all
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     When still a young boy Jubeh (Tak Sakaguchi) accidentally killed his father with a lightning fast baseball pitch and vowed never to play baseball again. Some years later after a crime spree, including killing a yakuza boss and a serial rapist, he is captured and sent to prison. There he is offered a chance; Governor Mifune (Ryosei Tayama) is suspicious of the “Headmistress” of Tochigi Gaol, the Nazi loving sadist Ishihara (Miho Ninagawa), and he transfers Jubeh to Tochigi to find out what she is up to.

     To rehabilitate juvenile offenders Ishihara’s gaol team participates in a special baseball league, and she wants Jubeh to play. Jubeh refuses, but is persuaded by a number of factors, including his roommate Suzuki (Mari Hoshino). The team’s first game is against the deadly, scantily clad all-female St Black Dahlia High. Amid blood and gore, Ishihara’s secret agenda comes to light.

     Deadball (Deddoboru), is another collaboration between director Yudai Yamaguchi, star Tak Sakaguchi and the people at Nikkatsu / Sushi Typhoon. I recently reviewed their Yakuza Weapon, an action spoof, and found that it had some imaginative ideas but is let down by confused plotting, queasy cam action sequences and general silliness. Deadball is pretty much more of the same, except that it lacks the imaginative ideas.

     Instead Deadball sets itself up as a gross-out comedy, and if crude humour, anal searches, eyeball gouging, eating vomit, exploding heads and projectile blood, all played for a laugh, are your thing then Deadball may be of interest. The plotting makes no sense at all, and is only there to hold the grotesque bits together. The film builds up for an hour towards the baseball game, and then it is not even the climax, with the all-female players just for show and the titillation of young male adults. The Nazi subplot makes no sense and ultimately goes nowhere. The camera work is jerky and out of focus, with varied contrast and brightness (I hope deliberately) and the CGI is poor, although some of the real gory make-up effects are not too bad. Tak Sakaguchi is a good looking and charismatic star who is great at self-promotion and acting cool with a cigarette (which is another running gag in the film) and is probably the main reason for watching Deadball.

     Deadball is another piece of grotesque, bloody, gory, silly over the top filmmaking from director Yudai Yamaguchi and star Tak Sakaguchi. Intended as a comedy, it is for fans only.

Video

     Deadball is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. I suspect the original theatrical ratio was 1.85:1.

     The print is indifferent, partly due to the restricted budget but also to the method of filming. Most of the film is done with shaky cameras, some out of focus and whenever a light source is behind the actors the film is very glary and it is hard to see what is happening: see the sequence around 6:53 for an example. This means that the film lacks sharpness in medium to long shots, although close-ups with a still camera do evince good detail. For the same reason, brightness and contrast vary, although sometimes this is deliberate such as in the flashback scenes.

     As expected of a recent film marks are absent, although there a little ghosting with movement. Colours are OK, blacks solid, and shadow detail adequate.

     English subtitles are in a white font. They are not the most solid subtitles I have seen but are easy enough to read and do not contain spelling or grammatical errors.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a choice of Japanese DTS-MA HD 5.1, Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps and an isolated music score, also Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps.

     The main DTS audio is loud with a good soundtrack of punk, electro and pop. Dialogue was clear and was centred. There were some ambient sounds and directional effects in the surrounds but the main use was for the music. The Dolby Digital is also good, but to my ear the DTS seemed cleaner with better separation. The sub-woofer added bass to the music, some heavy doors and a heartbeat.

     The score by Nobuhiko Morino was loud and called attention to itself, and so is appropriate for the film.

     On occasion the lip synchronisation appeared off.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Isolated Music Track

     Nobuhiko Morino’s score for the film, presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps.

More Monster Trailers

     Trailers for other films from this distributor: Erotibot, Guilty of Romance, Helldriver, Tomie: Unlimited, Yakuza Weapon and The Yellow Sea. Running time in total 11:14.

     There does not seem currently a Region 1 US release of the film. The Region 2 UK release is a two disc set, the first containing the film and the isolated score. There is a complete second disc of extras, including a Making of, short film, Opening Day Stage Greetings, Toki’s Wedding Part 2 (part 1 is on Yakuza Weapon, another Yudai Yamaguchi and Tak Sakaguchi film), cast interviews, cast reunion and a theatrical trailer. The Region 2 Japanese release is also a 2 disc version, which looks to have the same extras as the UK version. The feature is subtitled, but I am unsure about the extras. The UK version has a clear edge over the local release.

     If crude humour, anal searches, eyeball gouging, eating vomit, exploding heads and projectile blood, all played for a laugh, are your thing then Deadball may be of interest. Deadball is another piece of grotesque, over the top filmmaking from director Yudai Yamaguchi and star Tak Sakaguchi.

     The video shows the film’s limited budget, the audio is fine. The extras available elsewhere are missing, struck out of the park.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall