While I’ve seen many ridiculous films throughout my Asian film kick over the last month, I usually know which films are going to be crazy since word gets out about them from other festivals, but I couldn’t believe what I was reading when I read the Japan Cuts synopsis for Kankuro Kudo’s comedy Maruyama, The Middle Schooler. After reading, I had to see if what they said was true, the approach the director took and how he managed to tackle a subject that I never thought I’d see in a movie, let alone with the lead character being a kid.
Part coming-of-age story, part “self-fellatio” comedy, Maruyama, The Middle Schooler follows a 14 year old boy with a wild imagination whose goal is to lick his own penis (I swear to God). During his many attempts to complete his goal, Maruyama is constantly stretching, eventually to the point where his back snaps and he enters a dream-like trance, taking him into another world where fantasy and reality collide for some really trippy scenes. Eventually, his imagination transforms all the dull characters in his apartment complex into people with various secret identities, so when we cut to his imagination we’re watching a ridiculous action flick with assassins running around and people trying to get revenge based on the backstories that Maruyama has created.
To put it simply, Maruyama, The Middle Schooler is about a 14 year old with a lot of time on his hands. That’s the motto that’s repeated a few times throughout the film and one that makes perfect sense, except the lick-your-D part. I mean, leave it to the Japanese to take a weird concept like this and bring it to the big screen. Could you imagine seeing Diary of a Wimpy kid with this plot? I couldn’t, but I digress.
Maruyama, The Middle Schooler is a pretty fun, eccentric film, but its scattershot approach to entertainment works for them most part. There are people dancing nearly naked, mom’s falling for the handyman, a dad obsessed with fruit, teenage love, an elderly man dating an elementary school girl, the film is all over the place and on based on those descriptions sounds like a set-up for a porno. Almost all of those elements are their own separate storylines too, but Maruyama is the glue that connects it all together and eventually everything culminates to one hilarious finale where Maruyama becomes The Middle Schooler.
What makes Maruyama, The Middle Schooler such a weird film isn’t necessarily just the idea of a guy trying to suck himself off, it is the fact that it’s a middle schooler trying to do it, a 14 year old kid. Normally these types of films are reserved for high school students, as high school sex comedies have become a staple of our society, but this is a kid who hasn’t hit puberty yet. As a result, when you sit down to watch the movie and he begins to day dream you think,” oh, this film would be rated PG,” but then people get shot, there’s blood splatter, the dad has a little room to watch porn, girls look like they’re running around naked, and there are people cheering Maruyama on as he tries to lick his own penis while completely naked on a wrestling mat. I mean there is a lot of weird shit going on in this film that isn’t suitable for kids and it becomes tough to figure out who the target audience is. As an adult it just feels weird watching a middle schooler do all these things because you feel like a pedophile, but you know you’d never allow anyone under 16 to watch this type of movie, and that’s from a liberal perspective. In this regard, the film suffers an identity crisis, but I wonder if its ambiguity is what Director Kudo was going for.
Maruyama, The Middle Schooler is a film that deserves to be in its own class, in the “self-fellatio comedy” category. It’s a movie that seems like it’s made for all audiences but once you get past the cover you can’t figure out who it’s for let alone how many people would actually venture out to see this in public. It’s an imaginative, quirky, adventurous comedy that’ll remind everyone of the type of crazy fantasies they had as a kid and the joys of using their mind to escape the dullness of reality, regardless of how wild those dreams may be. I can’t say this movie is for everyone but if you want something inventive and out there, then this one may be a good option.
Rating: A very unique, entertaining and imaginative film that one would classify as a “self-fellatio comedy” (6/10)
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