Jigoku Kôshien

Plot synopsis:
It's every high school baseball team's dream to go to the legendary Koshien Stadium Tournament. For the first time in years, Seido High School has a chance—star player Gorrila Matsui has finally given the team an opportunity to succeed. Most delighted at this prospect is Principal Kocho. His hopes are dashed, however, when the Head teacher reveals to him that the first game will be played against the infamous Gedo High School.
Gedo is notorious for its brutal killings during games. They hardly play at all, instead engaging in a form of martial arts combat called "fighting baseball". Their matches erupt into brutal battlefields, Gedo slaughtering its opponents in any way possible, and the competing team vainly struggling for their lives. The Gedo team is almost inhuman in its slaughter, and their bizarre weapons and attire coupled with their green-grey skin only increase this reputation. Understandably, Kocho is distressed—not only at the likely murder of his students, but at the loss of yet another chance to win the Koshien Stadium Tournament.
Much to his delight, however, is the appearance of mysterious newcomer Jubeh, played by Tak Sakaguchi. Jubeh rescues Four Eyes (Megane, so named because of his eyeglasses.), played by Atsushi Itō, from a gang of expelled students, beating Bancho (Japanese for "boss" or "leader") and catching Kocho's eye. He begs and pleads with Jubeh to join the team to help them defeat Gedo, but he steadfastly refuses. During this time Kocho and Jubeh are also confronted by a resurrected Bancho, though his "face changed". Bancho joins the team, explaining that the injuries that prevented him from playing baseball were cured by Jubeh's punches.
When confronted by Four Eyes, Jubeh reveals why he has stopped playing baseball–in song. He musically laments his pitching skill, explaining how he became so skilled he was a danger to himself and others. Only his father, with an absurdly huge catcher's mitt, will allow Jubeh to pitch. However, when an accidental ball to the head kills him, Jubeh vows never to pitch again.
Despite this sorowful story, Four Eyes insists that Jubeh join the team, explaining his own plight. His mother hates baseball, and would be furious if he were to play. As a result, he must keep his presence on the Seido team a secret. Four Eyes' sheer love for the game touches Jubeh deeply, and he joins the team.
However, when the game against Gedo starts, Jubeh is nowhere to be found. As a result, the team is, predictably, slaughtered by the Gedo students. Jubeh gets there in time to hear Gorilla's last words. Finding a body he believes to be Four Eyes', Jubeh laments the loss, before realising that it's in fact a Gedo trap. The "body" explodes, hurling Jubeh across the field, sending him to an early grave.
Jubeh finds himself in a sepia-toned small town street in the afterlife. He sees a man he has not seen for some time–his father. He convinced Jubeh to embrace his pitching skills, and defeat Gedo once and for all. Jubeh pledges to do so as he watches his father ride off. Returning from the afterlife, he introduces his pitch, dubbed the "Super Tornado". Bancho also returns, again, this time as a child. He too met Jubeh's father in the afterlife, and was given his catcher's mitt.
In the meantime, somehow Four Eyes' mother has discovered that he was on the baseball team. As punishment, she locks him up in a cage, and watches over him day and night. Jubeh comes to rescue him, fighting Four Eyes's mother. He confronts her, asking her why she hates baseball so much. She reveals that her husband was killed by a baseball pitcher. All three come to a sudden realization—They are family. In jubilation, Four Eyes' mother gives him permission to play.
Kocho, Bancho, Jubeh, and Four Eyes, having formed a new Seido team, confront Gedo. The Gedo coach mocks the size and strength, or more accurately the lack thereof, of the new team. Much to his surprise however, several new team members show up—Head Teacher and Gorilla, now cyborgs, having been resurrected by "advanced technology", one of the school's cheerleaders, and Four Eyes' mother all team up to defeat Gedo.
Ultimately, all except Jubeh and the Gedo coach have been knocked unconscious. They duel with elaborate baseball bats, before Jubeh is knocked to the ground. Then, the Gedo coach unveils his ultimate weapon: the Gedo Poison Bat. Filled with a combination of deadly poisons and healing herbs, the effect is to create a horrific pain that will last for "hundreds of years." The coach slams it down onto Jubeh—However, Four Eyes has sacrificed himself, jumping in the way of the coach's attack. Jubeh, furious at the loss of his brother, leaps up and bitterly attacks the coach. However, before he can kill the coach, the Gedo players plead for his life, explaining how he brought them out of orphanages and became like a father to them. Seeing their heartfelt plea, Jubeh can't help but allow the coach to live.
Happily, the coach gains a newfound respect for life, and throws a bottle of antidote to Jubeh. A crowd gathers, and the sun begins to shine. However, this peace is soon interrupted by one member of the Gedo team, his head wrapped in bandages. He guns down everyone on the field, firing randomly and hitting everything in sight, including his own teammates. Jubeh manages to escape only through his own dexterity and the gunman's limited ammo. Looking around in outrage, Jubeh sheds a tear. As cherry blossoms fall, everyone on the field returns to life, before Jubeh attacks the bandaged gunman, literally knocking the muscles off his bones.
Joyously, the crowd celebrates, and the narrator states that they lived happily ever after—Including the one person on the field that day who wasn't resurrected by Jubeh's tears.

Tags: absurd, psychedelic, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
Battlefield Baseball (2003) is a fine adaptation of a Japanese manga comic.
One day his worse fears come true when he looks into the paper and finds his team playing against the undead brutal team from Gedo.
Unless he can convince the new transfer student to play for his school's baseball team.
Find out when you watch Battlefield Baseball!!Not a classic film but it's highly entertaining.
It's a total manga film so be prepared for cheesy melodrama, exaggerated violence, adult humor and musical numbers!!Highly recommended..
The Japanese love to mix genres, and with this one it is comedy, action, zombie film and musical all rolled into one big laugh fest.
The wackiness starts off with a baseball team trying to make it to the finals but facing their first opponents the Gedo team, which consists of zombie/demons kills almost the entire team.A rogue ex-player joins the high school and is recruited to the failed team in hopes that they can defeat them.
The recruitment leads to the films first of 3 (that I can remember) comedic musical numbers giving background information on the characters.The wide array of characters blends well for the film, and lends to the ridiculous scenes with the team facing off against the Gedo zombie team, who have their own rules for baseball, which doesnt even contain the actual game of baseball, but just attacking the other team attempting to kill them all.
Theres no way this strange humor would work in America, so if you like off the wall comedies, try to get a copy of this movie and see for yourself..
BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL (3 outta 5 stars) Okay, this is a low budget movie...
How can you not love a movie about a high school baseball team that has to fight an evil team that slaughters everyone they play against...
but I loved the team of bad guys, particularly the head coach who is one of the coolest looking villains ever.
The extremely round-eyed Bancho that we meet at the start of the movie is pretty funny, too.
The movie plays out like a feature length Monty Python sketch...
^^ Anyway, with cheesy SFX, over-the-top acting, and absolutely nonsensical jokes, Battlefield Baseball comes out as one hilarious film that doesn't take itself seriously for nary a minute - mixing some neat AoD tricks with the kind of Japanese humor, which is pretty typical of manga and anime.I haven't had the pleasure to read the original manga, but the closest comparison I can call, considering all the lampooning going on here, is the anime version of Excel Saga (which incidentally has an episode about baseball heroes - make sure you watch that if you haven't yet!) The movie is quite successful in what it was trying to do (and probably one the few that manages to pull it off): it's guaranteed to make you laugh - provided you like the styles of the source material.
...it would probably look a lot like this; because like Monty Pythion, this movie deliberately goes out of its way to be as ridicules as possible.
The story involves a high school baseball team, who's opponents happen to be a vicious gang of superhuman, green-faced monsters; the monster team enjoys horribly mutilating the players on the opposing team (sorry to disappoint you sports fans, but there is very little baseball is actually played).
Anyhow, the high school's last hope is to try and recruit a new student with incredibly powerful baseball skills; unfortunately he has vowed never to play baseball again, after one of his pitches ends up killing his father; are you following this so far?
There's a bit more to the story then that, but its not that important, sense the whole movie is really just an excuse to show us some of the most insane gags ever brought to the screen.
In my humble opinion low budget Japanese movies tend to be quite interesting and original, sometimes containing really odd ideas for the story and scenery.
The film do have a few really good moments where I was having a big smile and a bit of a laugh but as another other user here at the IMDb boards wrote, quoting "low budget ultimately hurts it too much" - something I'd definitely back up.
But if you are into Japanese movies and are just looking for some good time-killing, perhaps this one would do the trick..
Fun. Ever wanted to see an action / comedy / musical about baseball playing zombies?
He is a great baseball player, but he won't allow himself to play, that is until his new school, Seido High has to face the Gedo High School team, a team of baseball-playing zombies, whose stadium is apparently not to subject to any laws.
Awesome.'Battlefield Baseball' is nothing but 90 minutes of insanity: packed with fights, deadly baseball matches, all sorts of strange characters, musical numbers, crazy dialog, the most convenient and bizarre plot twists, and all-round awesomeness, 'Battlefield Baseball' is one bizarre, but very funny movie.Don't watch 'Battlefield Baseball' with any expectations, and don't take it seriously at all, and you should enjoy it.
I saw Battlefield Baseball at the Fantasy Film Festival in Munich, and it's really one of the funniest movies i've ever seen in my live!
The story is basically about a High School Baseball Team which has to face the brutal Killer Team of the Gedo High in a Baseball Match to death.
I don't want to tell u anything about the funny scenes, 'cause they are difficult to explain to someone who hasn't seen the film.
BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL (2004) This low-budget baseball zombie comedy is arguably a mixed bag, but one likely to develop a sizable cult following.
Desperate to make it to the big leagues, the Seido High School baseball team must face their much more successful rivals at Gedo High, a team made up entirely of well-armed zombies.
Their ace in the hole may well be transfer student `Jubeh The Baseball' (Tak Sakaguchi), who's signature fastball killed his own father, a tragedy which prevents him from helping the team.
Directed by the writer of VERSUS (Yudai Yamiguchi), produced by that film's director (Ryuhei Kitamura) and starring that film's lead (Tak Sakaguchi), BATTLEFIELD shares that film's low-budget ingenuity, but wisely knows when to take up stakes and call it a day around the 90 minute mark.
From the star and assistant director of personal favourite VERSUS comes what may best be described as SHAOLIN SOCCER as seen through the eyes of the Takashi Miike that made HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS.
i.e. one of the strangest, campest and most ridiculous films the world has ever seen.Tak Sakaguchi plays "Jubei Baseball", a student with extraodinary baseball talent that has sworn off the sport because of...
which he believes he is about to achieve until he discovers his opponents are a team of zombies renowned for not leaving their opponents alive at the end of a game.
Can Jubei be persuaded to join the team and help them achieve victory?Battlefield Baseball is based on a manga, and it shows - the styling of the film is extremely comic-book like, coupled with bizarre soap opera styled melodrama.
Unfortunately, the film suffers from an extremely low budget that robs it of most of the coolness that it could have had - and it shows that Ryuhei Kitamura was the real talent behind making VERSUS go so far beyond its budget, not his AD.
If you like movies that are just plain stupid and silly, then this is for you.
But, in doing so, it is hilarious and just great.You really can't get any better with vicious (and cheesy!) baseball brawls !
I know I had expected to at least like it a little bit as it has a tie in with Battle Royale and Jubeh is played by the star of Ultimate Versus, I loved both movies.
Someone else mentioned that there is never actually a baseball game and that's true, but we do see a baseball and bat a couple of times and they do wear uniforms (I had to write something good to justify my rating of 2 rather than 1) I could go on but then this would become as tedious as the movie itself, avoid this one..
I got this movie because i loved Battle Royale and was looking for similar stuff - but this movie is not the crazy japanese hack n' slay genre that i was expecting.
I thought about zombies playing baseball, but they never really play baseball in this movie.
But the worst thing of the movie is the absolutely stupid story that keeps you waiting for something that never happens (Inculding absolutely awful singing parts - like in a Disney Movie - Oh my God) Don't waste your time with this movie - that's my conclusion.
I always thought that VERSUS was one of the greatest Japanese movie, but I've to say that I was wrong...
The plot of Battlefield Baseball (Battlefield Stadium) might be stupid for some, but I loved it...
It was like watching Shaolin Soccer with Baseball, with good comedic performance from the actors (and once again a stupid but plausible story...
I would not consider myself a fan of this type of cheesy, campy zombie movies (I have yet to get through Army of Darkness without turning it off in disgust), but I did like Versus.
I really didn't know what to expect when I started watching it, but right away I was laughing at the terrible acting and dialogue.The movie centers on a baseball coach who wants to get to the finals, but he finds out that the first team he has to play against is the Zombie team from Gedo High School.
He then recruits Jubeh the Baseball, played by Tak Sakaguchi, to help fight the zombies.
The fight scenes and dialogue between the characters is just so cheesy that you can't help laughing at it.
I almost fell off my chair laughing.Once you get over how bad the acting and script is, this movie is pure fun and comedy (plus it has one of the greatest endings ever!).
I don't what to make of this movie, it as got to be one of the most strangest, weediest horror comedy movie I have ever seen.The plot to this Battlefield Baseball is a tough game--it doesn't end until all the members on the opposing team are dead.
In this game the Gedo High team is composed of blue-faced zombies, and their opponents on the Seido High team know they don't have a chance at beating themThis movie like no other zombies, I have seen, the first part of the movie is with about the headmaster who is coaching baseball team, They going face the same Zombie team who killed his players in the last time, which we see before the titles.
We do get see one gory death on scenes but all we see is the aftermath of the dead body parts torn off all over the place, he hated the fact it's same team again.He one of funniest people in the movie, he had me laughing a number of timesalso a New kids as come to the school who seem to be really good at baseball but he stopped playing and then he explains though song , yes a song!, how his dad died, in a very funny song!As this movies goes on, it's gets weird and wearied and never stops at all until very last scene of the movie.There some really funny moment in this movie, that I could not stop laughing and great jokes as well, worked really well.
and I loved the ending of the movie, thought really classic ending and very funny!The most bizarre, Horror, Comedy and I never seen anything liked this before!
some movies can take a super low budget and make something great with it.
This was utter crap.I get the feeling they created the plot for this with a couple hundred posted notes and a collection of darts.the special effects were probably made by a team of fourth graders The jokes were groan worthy It was a parody, but even so, the characters were so clichéd it wasn't funny.There were some neat ideas in this and some mildly zany "death" scenes but overall the best thing about this movie was the ending, because it was finally over..
I had such high hopes for this movie, as I first heard of it recently after seeing some great movies that this one tried to emulate, like shaolin soccer and god of cookery.
However as much as I wanted to enjoy viewing this movie, I ended up hating every single minute of it.
It uses every stupid hackneyed plot device and character type in the history of stupid movies, and doesn't pull off a single element convincingly, and was completely devoid of entertainment.
The producers probably wanted to do a movie like shaolin soccer, except they refused to pay a single yen more than the cost of the materials this abomination was shot on.
I have never seen such a thoroughly unfunny movie attempt so many bad gags.
Before watching this movie I thought it was going to be something like Shoalin Soccer but then with baseball.
I was left disappointed because I totally dig the idea of baseball with kung-fu moves.It is very hard to describe this movie but I'll try and explain why it's so goofy.
There are like 2 or 3 songs in this movie and they have the most ridiculous lyrics.
Now this is exactly why I was left disappointed because I was waiting for him to kill 1 or 2 bad guys with his super pitch but you never get to see it, only in his memories.It has it's funny moments but it's so damn goofy that you're sometimes scratching your head and wondering what the hell your watching.Don't expect shoalin soccer with baseball, but if your into Japanese goofiness then don't miss it..
It was the only time I laughed for this flick.You can still have fun with Jigoku Koshien if: -you are less than 22.(geeks add 4, girls remove 5) -You gather friends who wish a heavy duty low-budget Japanese no-brainer.
-If your local laws permits smoking pot, you should consider doing so.I loved many of the films cited in comments: Bad Taste, Evil Dead, Shaolin Soccer, Army of Darkness, many Monty Python, Battle Royal.But did NOT enjoy Jigoku Koshien.
If you thought Shaolin Soccer was wicked and funny, you've gotta see this one - some ideas are just so stupid that you can't believe, for example when this Head Teacher guy was killed while fighting against Evil Godo Team, he comes back from the dead after a while wearing some stupid metal stuff, and the dialogue goes like this:Head Teacher!
How can one not like a film that parodies "Lost in Translation".Quality is irrelevant to this movie - practically everything is.I have seen comments that this is a derivative film - derivative of what, I don't know.
There just seems to be an awful lot of funny movies coming out of Asia right now.
It's good to know someone has a sense of humor.There's little doubt that this is not a baseball movie - except of course that it is.
Sadly, the film leaves much to be desired.There's little in the way of zombie mayhem--most of the action, incredibly, happens off screen--and even less baseball.
As a result, this 'baseball' game consists of little more than a few fist fights with some poor special effects thrown in for good measure.There are a few amusing moments: Jubei's flashback to his father's death, for example, involves the most obscenely large catcher's mitt ever seen, but by and large, this is a poor tribute to the films of Takashi Miike..
I love horror movies, foreign films and baseball.
A Japanese zombie baseball flick?
And why does a movie with "baseball" in its title have virtually no baseball action in it?
I was curious to see the myriad ways one could defeat the undead on a baseball field generally within the games rules: Anticipating a line drive decapitating the pitcher, or a base-runner sliding into second with razors on his cleats, eviscerating a middle infielder while breaking up a double play.But there's nothing like that here.
There's also little sense of the game how it's played and revered in Japan, and the tiny differences I did notice I'm not sure I believe.
Apart from the lack of actual baseball and blood & guts, the movie offers little to recommend it otherwise.
There are a few small, funny moments, but most of the movie is shot through a sickly pea-green filter, the characters substitute nuance for monotonous yelling (just like DAY OF THE DEAD, the most disappointing American zombie movie I've seen), the zombie makeup is embarrassingly bad (they've got more pancake than IHOP), and, for some reason, the lead ghoul is dressed in vaguely Old-West fashion, resembling the elderly zombie from HOUSE II (*not* a movie one should be reminded of).And the humans keep coming back to life.
Why care about what happens if there's no doubt everyone will be around at the end?Oh well, burned again on another bad baseball flick.
Hope BALL OF WAX, when I get around to buying it (my store doesn't have it to rent), is at least watchable - a low-expectation descriptive that certainly does not apply to BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL..
This movie is totally stupid.
This movie is for those who lack intelligence, since it does not contain any intelligent thingBad acting+Bad script+Bad effects=Bad movieEveryone is silly in this movie, then zombies comes or some stupid guy with several baseball bats inside him and is still alive.
I still cannot decide which Japanese movie is the worst, this or Koroshiya IchiAvoid at all cost, even if you are curious, download it so you know that you wouldn't spend a dime on this.