capsule : another great piece of nonsense from the masters of enjoyably bad moviemaking . troma are the best bad filmmakers in the world . they're totally aware of their purpose in life , and they embrace it with a vehemence and a glee that other schlock-makers can't even come near . actually , most troma films are not nearly as bad ( unwatchable , stupidly conceived , boring ) as many high-ticket hollywood movies , and that's the secret of their charm . they're always entertaining , if ridiculous . i saw sgt . kabukiman in a week where i'd suffered through an unbelievable amount of forgettable and uncompelling big-ticket junk movies -- some of them bad but most of them just plain dull . kabukiman was by far the best of the bunch -- a funny , sustained , surprisingly witty movie with a ton of good lines . the plot is typically troma-weird : an nypd detective , name of harry griswold , gets involved in a massacre during a kabuki performance and gets the power of one of the dying players transferred to him . now he can transform himself into kabukiman , with a wild hairdo and outfit , and who can sling sushi and chopsticks to stop foes in their tracks . really . all of this is , of course , utterly idiotic , and done with grubby low-budget production qualities that make the movie all the more fun . it's also well-sustained . the movie doesn't simply pick one schtick and slog through it , but has fun coming up with bizarre tangents to the story ( like when griswold tries to transform into kabukiman and . . . uh . . . comes up with something else ) , and plays out its elements well . the movie finds a tone and sticks with it , which is not easy to do : most of the other movies i saw that week were hopelessly confused as to whether they were taking themselves seriously or not . kabukiman knows , and wallows happily in it . better to be an honest schlock movie than a confused or dishonest serious movie , any day of the <a href= " mailto : week . <hr>syegul@ix . netcom . com " >week . <hr>syegul@ix . netcom . com</a> efnet irc : ginrei [new email address coming soon] icq : 934998 <a href= " http : //www . io . com/~syegul " >http : //www . io . com/~syegul</a> another worldly device . . . new web site : <a href= " http : //cablehouse . dyn . ml . org " >http : //cablehouse . dyn . ml . org</a> . . . and the mandate of heaven you can crush me as i speak/write on rocks what you feel/now feel this truth<hr> 
