Synopsis
An actor who has lost his job due to the coronavirus buys capsule monsters online and begins to raise them.
The 12 Day Tale of the Monster that Died in 8
2020 ‘８日で死んだ怪獣の１２日の物語 -劇場版-’ Directed by Shunji Iwai
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Alternative Titles
Yoka de Shinda Kaiju no Juninichi no Monogatari, 8天就死去的怪兽的12日谈, 8일 만에 죽은 괴수의 12일 이야기
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Japan
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Japan
31 Jul 2020
- Theatrical
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Fantasia 2021: #6
This KAIJU FILM is embargoed until August 1st.
EDIT: Review hereFor full coverage of this year’s Fantasia Festival, keep an eye on TheTwinGeeks.com - and follow myself and Calvin on Letterboxd for updates when we can give them (and for exciting teases).
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FANTASIA 2021
Full review here (on The Twin Geeks).Excerpt:
As a whole, the film is witty and charming. There is a deadpan style to everything; the film takes itself seriously but is obviously incredibly silly. This just works; the dry sincerity of the conversation evokes humour but also reflects something very real about life under COVID-19. I have frequently reflected on how the strangest thing about living in unprecedented times – in a world so different from two years ago in ways I could not have foreseen – is how the unimaginable becomes so normal. The way that kaijus and aliens are referenced as prosaic details, never surprising anybody – and feeling actually banal – is funny but it…
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The 12 Day Tale of the Monster that Died in 8 is a found footage, black-and-white documentary-style satirical pseudoscience fantasy with interspersed music video interpretive dance, all in the name of fun.
I use the term found footage because it begins with what appears to be a parody of found footage horror, especially when you consider the horror here is the coronavirus. But soon after it devolves into the meandering lives of a few people who talk via video call.
A man buys some capsule monsters and watches them grow, with the main purpose of them growing up to fight the coranavirus. He begins to go down the rabbit hole of pseudoscientific YouTube videos of growing these capsule monsters. His…
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I'd pick Shunji Iwai as one of the filmmakers more likely to come up with a good pandemic movie, but this kaiju comedy feels better suited for a much shorter running time and showcase some of his worst whimsical tendencies. Also, let's face it no one will make watching someone else zoom call interesting. Iwai long experience with epistolary filmmaking does helps the diary format and there's some fun asides.
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"why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"it's not easy to talk about."off-beat (even by iwai's standards), albeit creative. the thing with all of these covid films is that they are being made because they can, not necessarily because they should (a distinction practitioners of the covid genre often fail to acknowledge (or at worse, fail to understand)). most covid films are shorts, and despite being "contemplative", they don't really have anything to say and/or they don't know how to say it. it is a forgivable sin - we've all done it before (certainly myself) - but a sin nonetheless.
few, if any, have mastered the use of music in film quite like iwai, but for whatever reason the music isn't…
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On s'entend qu'on est tous un peu las des films réalisés pendant le grand confinement et abordant la pandémie. Mais Shunji Iwai fait de petits miracles avec un concept intrigant et quelques idées ingénieuses pour mieux faire renaître le pouvoir de l'imaginaire, même dans la réclusion quasi complète. L'utilisation de l'univers des kaijūs réduits à un état minuscule mais en constante mutation appuie évidemment un commentaire sur la situation sociale, mais se double aussi d'une dimension réflexive sur la culture japonaise et sur les rapports entre l'imaginaire et le réel. Iwai exploite aussi à merveille les contraintes techniques et ne se limite pas à une utilisation convenue de Zoom, travaillant l'esthétique avec le noir et blanc et la…
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Don't forget your masks and your vaccines in this ultimate fight!
I was a bit lost during the first half but the second half gets pretty touching and Saitoh Takumi is very relatable in what I see as an attempt to somehow navigate this situation we find ourselves in in a unique and absurd way. And lbr, what is more absurd than life itself.
Always good to see Non as well in any context and their back and forth here is rather cute and funny as she tries to keep him company by showing him her own imaginary Kaiju.
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I’m not exactly jumping out of my seat to revisit the pandemic lockdown, but now that we’re a couple years out from it, it is interesting to see those days reflected in movies. I have the earliest of inklings of what it may feel like to have nostalgia for that weird time.
This is a film almost entirely comprised of “screens” of folks livestreaming, zooming, and YouTubing, starring Takumi Saito and others as themselves. He orders a kaiju “capsule monster” egg off the internet and we watch it progress and evolve as he shows it off to his friends (including Shinji Higuchi), and compares it to a YouTuber whose capsule monster seems to be growing much more fruitfully than his.…
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quarantine movies never worked for me but i guess that was until shunji iwai made one. oddball of a movie. i didn't know what to expect from it and somehow got the most unpredictable and weird thing possible. it even made me laugh out loud a couple of times. it is terrifying that this movie was made in 2020 and it is 2022 now. maybe i also need to buy a capsule kaiju for myself at this point...
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A very cute and undeniably unique take on being locked down during the pandemic that is simply not for me.
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Iwai Shunji is one of the most reliably adventurous mainstream directors in world cinema today. A quick look at his recent output: After his epic 2015 chronicle of a lonely woman and the Internet (A Bride for Rip Van Winkle), he made an animated prequel to one of his best films (The Case of Hana & Alice), an hour-long movie about Bae Doona as an alienated housewife that was actually an extended commercial for Nescafé (Chang Ok’s Letter), and two versions of the same film made back to back, one in China and one in Japan (Last Letter). So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that his latest, The 12 Day Tale of the Monster that Died in 8, is an adaptation of a COVID-boredom challenge by Shin Godzilla co-director Higuchi Shinji, wherein a variety of celebrities would make short films about their kaiju defeating COVID called, naturally, “Kaiju Defeat COVID.”
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Originally I thought of this as the lockdown movie to end all lockdown movies, but admit that might be a bit narrow-minded. Especially now that people seem to be enjoying another lockdown type film (Inside).
I do want to state that what I consider a lockdown film is a movie that was largely produced and released during or just after lockdown, while incorporating elements of our (temporary) changed way of life. I'm sure we will get plenty of reflective movies on the pandemic and it's impact in the future. Some of it might actually be good. But as for lockdown films, I feel like The 12 Day tale of the Monster that Died in 8 will be as good as…
