多布拉多

　　The first feminist vegan horror film, The Herd has been rejected by some film festivals for being too horrific or political. A number of kidnapped women are kept imprisoned in a squalid medical facility condemned to a life of enforced servitude at the whims of their captors, without any hope of rescue or escape.

 又是一个平静的日子，内裤爱好者八宝斋（永井一郎 饰）四面出击，惹得乱马（山口勝平 饰）、小茜、良牙（山寺宏一 饰）、珊璞（佐久間レイ 饰）等人纷纷加入进来，在镇上惹出巨大的骚动。正当众人闹得不可开交之时，一头裹挟着黑色杀气的大象突然袭来。它和美丽的主人向八宝斋发起攻击。与此同时，天空阴云密布，一艘巨船出现在空中。他们是来自中国内地寝昆仑的七福道神，这群神秘之人不仅抢走骑象少女带来的奥义经卷，还虏走了小茜。乱马一众不堪就范，决定启程前往中国……本片根据高桥留美子的漫画《乱马1/2》改编，系该动画的剧场版第一部。

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

 What begins as a peaceful venture into civilian life for a pair of military vets, quickly devolves into chaos when a nuclear crisis brings danger to their doorstep, igniting an unexpected alliance with a potential enemy, as they struggle to protect their team and overcome the shadows of their past in a lawless new world.