Black Rat (aka Kuronezumi) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A group of friends receive a mysterious text to meet one their friends who had committed suicide.

Review: Once more, this is a film being taken away from Netflix streaming, and I guess it's already gone so that sucks. Well, you know it's never a good sign when there isn't a wikipedia page and even imdb doesn't list who played who in the cast section nor have any comments in its forum. But I decided to give this one a go regardless, and it turned out to be nothing like what I was anticipating. I really don't know what to make of this movie though, because it's a straightforward revenge flick in theory yet it somehow screws that up while simultaneously being so over the top that it crosses into so bad it's good territory quite successfully. It's as if you think they will take the subject matter seriously, but then pull out an overly ridiculous revenge scheme and surprisingly cool fight scenes. I don't know what the hell they were thinking, but as stupid as this movie can get, it never ceases to be entertaining.

The story is simplistic...maybe even too much so since we don't get a full grasp on what has set things in motion. There is a group of seven friends, at least I think they're supposed to be friends, who are planning some dance or whatever. One stupid thing leads to another and the main girl, Asuka, who planned this dance ends up committing suicide; to be fair, she was a pretty good dancer. For some unexplained reason, the remaining six friends get a text from Asuka 49 days later asking to meet in their classroom. The group of idiots agree to meet simply for the sake of finding out who is messing with them. There they find a girl wearing a rat mask similar to the one Asuka had wanted them to wear at the little dance they were planning. The girl wears a schoolgirl outfit, writes her words instead of speaking to appear creepier I suppose, and presents one of their friends as seemingly already murdered. Even though there are four of them in the group, at the moment, and one of them is supposed to be a tough guy, they run like little bitches from the girl in the rat mask like she's fucking Jason or Michael Myers. Eventually the rat-girl tracks down the group's resident bitch boy and challenges him to a life or death penalty kick in soccer. Instead of running away, the bitch boy accepts and fails thus is beaten to death with a baseball bat. During each character's demise, we learn a little more about what led Asuka to commit suicide although I still don't have a clear reason. Plus, this group simply doesn't feel like friends, and I don't get the feeling they ever got along nor would they. The wannabe-smart one of the group tries to escape the school but is tazed by rat-girl and then tied up. The smart one is then challenged to get a perfect score in karaoke or die; she of course fails and is electrocuted to death.

Up to this point things were mostly straightforward, but from this point on things start to really get funny. So the tough guy and his little chickadee prepare weapons to fight rat-girl which is kind of moronic since all she had was a baseball bat. To make this more complicated, the tough guy actually crafts himself a spear out of tools rather than using the tools themselves as weapons! Tough guy and rat-girl then get into a pretty decent fight as tough guy manages to knock off the mask and reveal that rat-girl is actually the first guy they believed was killed. I like that he even went to the length to wear a padded bra! Tough guy manages to finally kill the rat-boy who comically becomes ensnared in a trap he should have already known about as if this is "Home Alone" or something. At the exact same time, another person dressed as rat-girl meets the final classmate that was late to the party on the roof where Asuka had committed suicide. This main girl was the most friendly with Asuka and appears to be the most guilt-ridden and sees through rat-girl's ruse to make them think she's some kind of ghost. Another awesome fight breaks out as they go all over the roof exchanging blows. I mean, was this a school for martial arts or something?! The main girl knocks rat-girl down the stairs where she is impaled on her own knife revealing that she is Asuka's older sister; yes, throw in a random character at the last second...sure! We learn that Asuka's sister wanted revenge against the group and recruited the one guy to help her in an overly elaborate plan that obviously failed miserably. The main girl feels left out of the revenge scheme and decides to don the mask and pick up where the sister had left off. Now as the third rat-girl, the main girl tracks down the chickadee and they get into yet another over the top fight scene; this one is especially amusing, because they go all out and the chickadee even starts talking trash calling her "rat girl." But the main girl wins and beheads the chickadee. This leads to the best moment when the tough guy tries to leave on his scooter and is randomly blown up! The movie ends with the main girl sitting outside the school as we hear sirens in the distance and she smirks an evil grin talking about how she will keep the secret between her and Asuka.

A few things I'm leaving out are the random "artsy" shots that are pretty decent, but they become idiotic when the movie has shots of laughably bad CGI like with the moon. Why try and add beautiful transition shots if you're going to have such horrendous shots following it? The best reason I can guess why Asuka committed suicide was because she felt the group turned on her and didn't care about her dumb dance, but when we get little reason as to what kept this group together, why should this move the audience? There is some unspoken drama, but it's hardly worth addressing. The movie is really short, so we could argue a lot of the bullshit was filler, but why not use the extra time, get rid of the filler, and properly tell the tale? There is something about how Asuka is always smiling to cover up her feelings and blames herself for whatever, but nice try. There are just so many unanswered questions and this is confounded by the idiocy of the plan by Asuka's sister and the sheer shenanigans of the movie as a whole. But with all of this said, there is something amazingly entertaining to it all. The fights are good, the random scenes keep things interesting, and the creative set up to the revenge scheme is fun. If you can manage to track this film down now, I'd say it's worth a view because of how offbeat it is, but you have to appreciate it from a certain perspective.

Notable Moment: When the tough guy thinks he's escaping and suddenly blows up on his little scooter. Well, that came out of nowhere and looked fake as hell.

Final Rating: 5.5/10