The Calamari Wrestler (2004)

directed by Minoru Kawasaki

Japan

91 minutes

3 stars out of 5

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At this point I've watched quite a few of Kawasaki's films, and while not all of them hit as hard as his best ones, like Executive Koala, I do still think they're all interesting. What distinguishes these movies is Kawasaki's unwavering commitment to the bit, which extends across the board to everybody else involved, too: no matter how goofy the premise is, all of this is always played completely straight.

The Calamari Wrestler is about a man who becomes a squid. As the title implies, the film is set within the world of pro wrestling, and the squid in question is the reincarnated form of famous wrestler Kanichi Iwata, who was forced to retire at the height of his popularity by a terminal illness and returned as a squid. We meet him when he ambushes another wrestler, Koji Taguchi, poised to himself become the top wrestler in Japan, and absolutely smites him. Though it isn't an official match, Taguchi obsesses over this loss and demands to face up against Iwata fair and square.

Outside of the obvious weirdness of having the antagonist of the film be a squid (with the protagonist eventually becoming an octopus - more on that in a minute), this is basically a normal movie. Even boring. The way it manages to subvert your expectations at every turn is what makes it. If you took all the seafood out, this would be an average love story set against a pro wrestling backdrop and I would probably not care for it in the slightest. But through the addition of a wild card element - the squid - Kawasaki produces something that makes us pay attention not just to the squid itself but to the larger narrative. It makes us think more about how other stories that follow the same beats but lack squid function.

What I thought was unusual about all of this is that there's a fluidity between squid and human that essentially implies that being a squid might be better than being a human, at least if you want to be a wrestler. Iwata was only able to reincarnate as a squid under the strict supervision of an elder monk and his team of younger monks, and he can maintain squid form so long as he resists his earthly desires. He's fully able to turn back to a human - but it's an accidental thing, and framed as a mistake; when he meets his girlfriend and they get down and dirty, he returns to being a human. Suppressing desire and connection to the material realm is what grants him squidhood. The same thing eventually happens to his opponent, Taguchi: through training and self-denial, he is able to become an octopus and fight Iwata on even ground.

Topping all of this off is some seriously awesome creature design and suit acting. I was wowed by the squid suit: it's simple, just a big squid with legs and wrestling boots, but the way its face is articulated gives it a surprising level of expressiveness. Instead of having a mouth that moves when he talks, the squid has articulated eyelids, which on paper sounds weird, but when you watch it in action, it just works really well. The top of the suit also has some mobility around the brow area, so the squid can actually change his facial expressions and convey emotion. Neither of the other suits have this level of articulation.

I'm kind of conflicted about what rating to give this, because on the one hand as a love story and a story about pro wrestling - something I could not care less about, personally - this is a little boring. The only thing it's got going for it is giant seafood, but boy, what a thing that is. This kind of movie will probably only appeal to a narrow subset of the populace, and even then, I don't see it being anybody's favorite thing ever in the world. But it is pretty good.

I don't know where else to put this, but in researching this movie on Japanese Wikipedia, I found out that production was supervised by none other than Akio Jissōji. Yes, that Akio Jissōji. This Transient Life Akio Jissōji. Overseeing a movie about a wrestling squid.