DVD

Deadball

Anton van Beek  |  Aug 16, 2012

Will this ultra-gory Japanese baseball flick hit a home run with cult movie fans?

Yûdai Yamaguchi’s latest is basically the Story of Ricky of baseball movies. Tak Sakaguchi stars as a rebellious youngster whose deadly baseball skills find him serving time in a prison run by Neo Nazis (don’t ask). What follows is a deliriously bad taste mix of slapstick splatter and hilariously awful CG effects – and it had me laughing like a drain throughout.

This two-disc edition hits a bit of a home run with its colourful anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer and boisterous DTS and Dolby Digital Japanese-language 5.1 mixes. Extras include an isolated score (DD5.1), the Final Deadball 21min short film, a 12min Making of... featurette and the second part of a wedding video (again, don’t ask), the first part of which accompanied the DVD release of Yamaguchi's earlier Yakuza Weapon.

Bounty Films, R2 DVD, £16 Approx, On sale now
HCC VERDICT: 3/5

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