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Battle Heater: Kotatsu

Battle Heater

Japan 1989
produced by
Shochiku
directed by Joji Iida
starring Pappara Kawai, Akira Emoto, Kaoru Okunuki, Bakufu-Slump, Hisanori Ogura, Shigeru Muroi

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Furuchi (Kawai Pappara) one day discovers a Kotatsu-heater (kind of a combination of small heater & coffee table, which is virtually unknown outside of Japan) on a scrapyard & takes it home for improved comfort during the winter months. The heater though proves to soon mutate into a lifeform of its own with a predilection for killing people. This, however, is not Furuchi's most pressing problem, since on one hand the imprint of the heaters ring on his forehead protects him from the heater's evil, on the other hand, the rock band from next door (Bakufu Slump, of which actor Kawai Pappara - in real life - was the lead guitarist) not only keep him awake with their noise at all hours but also bully him & want to get at his girlfriend Kurumi (Kaoru Okunuki).

The only one who seems to be really worried about the evil heater is Furuchi's boss Hama (Akira Emoto), who soon decides to take the heater with him to disassemble it & find out about its abnormal powers. Unfortunately though, the heater has foreseen this & put another similar but harmless heater in its place, leaving Hama with no clue at all while it happily goes on killing people.

It all ends with a rockconcert by Furuchi's neighbours, which they hold in their own appartment, where they (& their audience) are attacked by the heater on a large scale, but in steps Hama, who has built himself an armour out of another heater (that looks incredibly cool & incredibly stupid at the same time), & he fights & almost beats the evil heater. In the end though, it's up to Furuchi to stop0 the heater again by re-placing the heater's ring (when it fell off, all the evil started in the first place.

 

As the movie does not take itself serious at all, it manages to stay entertaining, it is however trying way too hard to be over-the-top to qualify as a really great comedy. Instead of taking the great premise of a heater - representiong conservative Japanese values - gone mad in an average appartment building, the film portrays all the building's inhabitants as eccentric in their own way - from the evil rock band to the couple (Hisanori Ogura, Shigeru Muroi) who desperately but clumsily wants to get rid of a corpse, to an elderly couple that commits suicide but tries to not bother their neighbours with it - thus robbing the basic idea of much of its impact, thus making Battle Heater a rather pointless if macabre comedy.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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