The bizarre world of Japanese Sea Life Sports movies
For generations of cinema, Hollywood has abided by several key genres, including horror, comedy, drama, westerns, science fiction and many more. But the movie industry is a vast plain where countless creative minds mingle, creating endless absurd creations that have produced such bizarre genres as the Australian Meat Pie Western, the Bruce Lee subgenre ‘Bruceploitation’ and Japan’s Sea Life Sports films.
A twist on the Kaiju genre, a typical Sea Life Sports movie follows a humanoid aquatic creature who takes part in a competitive sport (football, wrestling, boxing), facing up to adversity in the process. Despite sounding like exactly the kind of bizarre comedy that is emblematic of Japanese humour, the origins of the genre are far more unusual, emerging from the UK as the result of a tax dodge.
The story starts with the writer and director Guy Hands, who in 2003 took to creating Crust, a film that follows a pub owner who introduces a giant 7ft shrimp to boxing. Starring a number of famous names, including Kevin Mcnally of Pirates of the Caribbean, Downton Abbey’s Perry Fitzpatrick and Moneypenny herself Naomie Harris, the movie is an oddity of early 2000s filmmaking that tragically never saw the light of day in the UK.
“I was just sitting there watching Wildlife on One, which featured shrimps, and I thought ‘Wouldn’t it be great to see one of those boxing?'” Guy Hands told Birmingham’s Sunday Mercury in 2007 when asked about the inspiration behind the movie. Revealing how Frank Skinner narrowly missed out on the film, the filmmaker concluded by hinting at a future project: “I’m thinking about doing a film about vampires running a garden centre”.
Alas, Hands’ green-fingered vampire movie never saw the light of day after Crust was cancelled from distribution when it was discovered that the main investor behind the film used the production as a form of tax avoidance. Noticing an influx of awful-looking British movies made for the equivalent of petty cash, the officials at Inland Revenue went investigating the 2003 film and uncovered that it was a clever attempt at tax dodging.
Likely as a result of the scam, which exposed the fact that investors had been double-dipping and thus claiming tax relief twice, the film never made it to video.
Although, thanks to its whacky concept, Crust made a significant impact in Japan, with the movie sparking the Sea Life Sports film sub-genre, which continued with The Calamari Wrestler in 2004 and Crab Goalkeeper in 2006. Hilariously described by director Minoru Kawasaki as being “like Forrest Gump, but with a crab,” Crab Goalkeeper tells the story of an oversized crustacean who is hired as a goalkeeper by a football team.
This later inspired Kawasaki to branch out, creating the wrestling movie Kabuto-O Beetle in 2005, followed by the surreal work drama Executive Koala, which followed a financial manager and potential murderer who happened to be a koala.
Take a look at the bizarre trailer for 2004s Calamari Wrestler below.
