[KFCC] Unlucky Monkey Review

Story: Yamazaki and his partner in crime decide to rob a Bank to get a big sum of money. Yamazaki was not very confident about the idea but the call of easy money is too strong for him. Unfortunately for them, the robbery doesn’t go as planned, in fact it’s a total mess but Yamazaki finally ends up with all the money for himself. During his run trying to escape the cops, Yamazaki stabs a beautiful young woman. In panic and afraid of being caught by the police, Yamazaki escapes the scene wishing that the girl is all right. From that time Yamazaki will be haunted by the vision of that girl, but something is wrong with Yamazaki, has he fallen in love with someone that he might just have killed?

Meanwhile a trio of low life yakuza have just killed by mistake an important gang leader of an opposite yakuza gang. The trio is in big trouble because now that group of yakuza is on their tail looking for revenge. But the trio will cross the path of another character that also seems to be in is worst day of his life, the poor Yamazaki.

Review: Unlucky Monkey story is not very different from other Sabu movie as it contains the same type of clever story that can string together different sub-plot and characters all together in a very imaginative way. Usually that type of story is a bit hard to follow but in that case, it was pretty easy, since they didn’t use flashback or weird editing in the movie. With the exception of a few surprises that seem a bit exaggerated or incoherent and a misleading ending, the story is rather good and simple to follow.

On the other side, one thing that is a bit hard to follow is the characters, especially Yamazaki the main character. I’m not questioning the acting ability of Shinichi Tsutsumi, because I think that he’s a great actor, especially in Monday also directed by Sabu, but it was really hard for the viewer to understand what the character was feeling. Maybe it was the intention of the director to make the character appear so confusing. Unfortunately, that character falls in the shadow of the three stupid yakuza who were most interesting to follow.

The three Stooge Yakuza were really funny and enjoyable, especially at the beginning where they try to get out of the delicate situation that they just fell into and of course their situation just gets worse and worse every time they make a move. The general acting was most of the time top notch and you will also recognize a lot of familiar faces among the yakuza gangs. There might not be any booming characters in the movie but at least none of them were annoying.

The only real draw back of Unlucky Monkey is the pace and action, something that is essential to this kind of movie. There are too many slow moments and long dialogues during the story, which make the movie appear a bit longer that it is in reality. The movie begins on a good pace with a minimum of action and good situational comical moments, but this will lead us to a slow development. At least dark humor was almost always right on time to save most of the boring moments and the movie gets also back on track with the final confrontation at the end of the movie. If the dynamics of the movie had been better, Unlucky Monkey would have been a great success.

Unlucky Monkey is a decent Sabu movie but personally I really preferred Monday, which was more clever and entertaining than UM was. Sabu movies are not for everyone, but if you think that a wise and full plot and dark humor is your cup of tea, you will probably like Sabu’s movies very much and Unlucky Monkey is a good movie to get initiated to the Sabu mastermind. If you already know Sabu and like his style, then I don’t need to convince you to check out this one too.