After its world premiere during Slamdance 2023, the feature-length debut from writer/director Reiki Tsuno (Crying Bitch), Mad Cats, traveled the globe jumping from one film festival to another. At each stop, audiences were invited to enter a world in which vengeance is as black as night, predators are silent as death, and the only way to survive is to be better at slaughter than the murder cats on your heels. In short, good f’ing luck. If this sounds like a good time to you, delight in the upcoming home release of Tsuno action comedy via Third Window Films that includes behind the scenes footage, a side-by-side comparison of rehearsal and final footage, a lengthy interview with Tsuno, and feature-length commentary with Tsuno. To make things even better, if you lack a region-free player, the release itself is region-free whether you get it on digital or Blu-ray and it all comes available on January 29th.
Shô Mineo as Taka in MAD CATS. Photo courtesy of Third Window Films.
Taka (Shô Mineo) lives a pretty aimless life, sulking around his trailer and not doing much of anything since the abrupt disappearance of his archeologist brother Mune (So Yamanaka). But when an unaddressed envelope arrives with his mail containing an unidentified voice directing him to a location in which Mune is held, Taka finds himself on a rescue mission for which even a hope and prayer isn’t enough. Targeted by various wordless assassins, Taka eventually finds help from Takezo (Yûya Matsuura), an unhoused man of mystery, and the enigmatic Ayane (Ayane), whose ties to the murderesses are either going to be the salvation or destruction of all three.
Center: Hikari Aiko as The Boss in MAD CATS. Photo courtesy of Third Window Films.
Straight-up, Mad Cats is not for the normies. Sure, it’s not as wild, grotesque, or salacious as 2023’s Lion-Girl and is certainly straight-forward in its storytelling, but that doesn’t mean that it’s either easy to track or, by any measure, deep. Intentionally designed by Tsuno to be absent a specific location (he discusses this within the included 28-minute one-on-one interview), the audience has no sense of time or place, merely that some weirdness is going down, and you either get with it or get out of the way. Truth is, the sooner you embrace the uncertainty — looking at you, Taka — the easier the ride gets and the more fun you’ll have. Are you confused how several of the murder cats keep reappearing even after they were supposedly shot all to hell or beaten down? (Maybe it’s nine lives, maybe it’s Maybelline) Me, too, but don’t think about it too hard. Why? Because these murder cats are portrayed by women with strong stunt capabilities and we’re just supposed to understand that they’re cats being led by one only known as The Boss (Hikari Aiko) and, frankly, I have a head cannon that these murder cats are so pissed off, not because of the object Taka steals (under instructions) while trying to save his brother, but because some asshat who doesn’t take care of cats hurt The Boss before she transformed and that’s why she’s in a wheelchair. Speaking as a parent to a now-passed pup who underwent years of rehab and spent a long time moving with the aid of a sling, just because an animal can’t walk doesn’t mean it’s done living. So, yeah, I’d be pissed off at humanity if I’d been treated like crap and cast aside, only to figure out a way to inherit special abilities that can be used to destroy those who profit from the enslavement of my people. Amid the surreal comedy is a foundation of anger and frustration, but this may as well be Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988) in its execution, so that bit is likely to go less noticed. Frankly, it’s more subtext than text and as the narrative is more interested in Taka’s journey to save his brother and the friends he makes along the way, though, and this is a major problem with the film, there’re a few too many things left to infer that make the conclusion, fun as it is, clear and satisfying.
What will delight folks who enjoy martial arts, melee, and gun action in their comedy are the various exchanges that go down throughout the film. There’s Maari Iwata’s The Innocent Sword whose form is deadly, even if her blade never takes a drink of blood; Ayaka Takezaki and Shen Tanaka’s The Older Remington Sister and The Younger who engage in sharpshooter combat; and Chiyuki Kanazawa’s The Executioner whose silent footwork makes her movements as deadly as the sharp-end of her axe — these four only making up a total of 13 murder cats that Taka, Takezo, and Ayane encounter on their quest. Thanks to both the behind-the-scenes featurette and rehearsal/final footage featurette, we can actually see just how much work went into the choreography to create sequences that will dazzle action fans and give the unreal circumstances the characters are in true immediate danger to overcome. So whether you line up with Tsuno’s humor or not, at least the action will keep you engaged.
Ayane as Ayane in MAD CATS. Photo courtesy of Third Window Films.
With a home release review, a certain amount of time would be spent talking about packaging (if there’s anything that stands out) or included materials. This review is based on a check disc (non-retail copy of the film), so I can’t speak to the artwork included, whether or not it is reversible as the press materials suggest, or what, if anything, is included. Instead, what follows will focus solely on the on-disc bonus materials.
As mentioned, there’s a full feature-length commentary track with Tsuno. Oddly, if this is something you want to check out, you have to access it from the bonus features segment, rather than from the audio settings, so keep that in mind if you go looking for it. The next place to stop is the one-on-one interview between Tsuno and a mostly voiceless interviewer as most of the questions Tsuno answers come from a prompt visible to us via title cards. It is quite informative as Tsuno shares how he watched a lot of films with his dad via a Blockbuster-type place and his dad showed him both Evil Dead films. By the age of 6/7, Raimi (Evil Dead) was everything to him (He, too, is a person of taste and culture). Later, he speaks of interning with Lloyd Kaufman at Troma, even working on Return to Nuke’m High, but mostly made commercials. From here, he talks about his influences (Raimi and John Carpenter (The Thing) and Raimi) and how he sees himself adding comedy to his work, even if he were to try his hand at a serious story. With Mad Cats, he sought to make a film that had no specific location that tied the story to Japan outside of the language that the characters spoke. Overall, the answers feel in-depth and informative, adding some richness to the film.
L-R: Yûya Matsuura as Takezo and Shô Mineo as Taka in MAD CATS. Photo courtesy of Third Window Films.
The behind-the-scenes featurette runs just under nine minutes and demonstrates just how small of a production (no shade) that making Mad Cats was. We observe run-throughs of different sequences, as well as watch how they capture the vision for the film. This includes working on blocking for the fights, setting up for regular scenes, and also general dicking around between setups and shots. Really gives you a sense of how small and intimate the making of the film is. Building off of this, the five-minute fight rehearsals/final footage featurette is a literal side-by-side/picture-in-picture look at the rehearsal and final version of the fight between Ayane and the two cats at the end of the film. Make sure to watch this *after* completing your first watch of the film so as not to spoil some of the secrets.
Other than the above, there’s both a teaser trailer and full trailer for Mad Cats included on the disc.
L-R: Shô Mineo as Taka, Yûya Matsuura as Takezo, and Ayane as Ayane in MAD CATS. Photo courtesy of Third Window Films.
If you’ve ever existed alongside a cat (I think those who have had cats as pets wouldn’t described themselves as owners, if they’re being honest), then you know that they can be fiercely independent, equally loyal, and unexpectedly violent. We don’t always know what provokes the tiny murder machines into manically running up and down the halls at night or why they demand attention only to swipe at you if you try to accommodate. It’s theirs to know and ours to wonder, if the pecking order is correct. Tsuno’s Mad Cats doesn’t seek to explore any of this, but weaponized it, creating hilarity and action awe in the process. Some of it lands better than others, but there’s nary a moment where an engaged audience will feel bored by the concept. Combined with the surprisingly in-depth, if few, bonus materials, what Third Window Films offers is going to make buyers content with the snag.
Mad Cats Special Features:
- Director feature audio commentary (1:27:27)
- Interview with director Reiki Tsuno (27:48)
- Behind the Scenes (8:40)
- Rehearsal vs Fight comparison footage (5:08)
- Teaser (0:36)
- Trailer (1:27)
- Reversible Sleeves
- All region
Available on Blu-ray and digital January 29th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Third Window Films Mad Cats webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews
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