Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent but underrated film

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

While in a fight with her psychotic and cannibalistic mother, "Kika" (Yumiko Hara) has her heart ripped out at the exact same time a meteorite hits both her and her mother "Rikka" (Eihi Shiina). Both are essentially wrapped in a strange cocoon and frozen in time. Meanwhile the ash from the meteorite blankets a certain portion of Japan and those who breathe it are turned into zombie-like creatures about an hour later. What then transpires is a bizarre political debate on how to treat these infected people with one side arguing that they should be killed and the other side demanding that they be protected. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that this particular type of film apparently appeals to a certain niche of movie-goers who really enjoy action and gore regardless of how ridiculous some of the scenes turn out to be. And there were more than a few ridiculous scenes in this movie. Naturally, this movie was never meant to be taken seriously but even so the continuous action and gore got more than a little annoying. Again, those who enjoy action and gore to the exclusion of everything else will probably love this movie. But I am not one them and I have rated it accordingly. Awful.

I was so excited when I found out about this movie on Amazon, and I ordered it immediately as it was available, so I managed to acquire a 2-disc DVD version of it. Why was I excited you might ask? Well because it is a zombie movie, a Japanese movie and it has Eihi Shiina in it; three good things put together.As with the recent releases of gore movies from Japan, you know what you are in for with this movie as well. And true enough, "Helldriver" is in the likes of "Tokyo Gore Police", "Meatball Machine", etc. There is an excessive amount of blood and gore from the very start till end here (so now you are warned). And also there is a lot of questionable effects, but you bear over with it because of the gore and absurdity of the whole movie. This is what Japanese gore movies is all about after all.The story told in "Helldriver" is just as weird as the rest of the movie. Kika (played by Yumiko Hara) is abused by her mother, watching her father killed before her very eyes, and she have her heart ripped out by her mother. Then things take a turn for the extreme, yeah as if this wasn't absurd enough. Something from space strikes down the mother, and half of Japan is covered by a strange cloud, turning people into ravenous zombies. Kika is recovered by the Japanese government, "improved" and put back out to deal with the zombie invasion in the north and put the Zombie Queen to rest."Helldriver" has questionable acting at times, but the overall acting performance was adequate for this particular type of movie. So you come to accept the odd acting and over-dramatized situations from time to time.I found "Helldriver" to be good enough entertainment, as I knew what to expect and had braced myself beforehand. Take this for what it is, gory entertainment that is almost as far from being realistic as it can get. This is a movie after all, meant to entertain, not meant to mirror our daily lives.If you don't like gore movies, the extreme splatter movies that Japan have spawned in the recent years, then stay well clear of "Helldriver", because it will not be in your liking. If you are a gorehound and enjoy these over-the-top Japanese splatterfests, then sink your teeth into "Helldriver", because it is as gore-drenched as many of the previous movies of the same genre.The only thing that was a disappointment for me was that Eihi Shiina didn't have as much time on the screen as I would have liked. But that is a matter of personal preference. And also being a huge fan of the zombie genre, I did found this whole antler-thing on the heads of the zombies to be a bit weird. But I accepted it as part of the movie, and also because it did fit well enough into the absurdity of this particular movie and genre.

I liked so many extreme gory flicks coming from Japan in the eighties and nineties because they were full of gore and red stuff. But times are changing and lately flicks coming from Japan aren't my cup of tea anymore. It started with Takashi Miiki's Yattâman (Yatterman). I loved the man and every gorehound has at least seen one of his flicks. The last one I liked was from Masters Of Horror 'Imprint' which I even bought uncut on Blu Ray. But Yatterman was something weird, it contained too much of CGI and had a strange story. It failed completely for me and I hoped that this new kind of shooting was a one in a kind.Was I wrong, I saw this due Asami being in it who I met at a convention and tried to talk with, she only understood Japanese, luckily Kurando Mitsutake (Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf) was there to translate everything. Another reason was that Eihi Shiina (Audition) was in it, she's back in business and Asami is a new star in her native land. What we have is an extremely gory flick but it made me think of Yatterman. So much CGI and weird things like zombies with horns. And the scene with the mother tearing out the heart of her child is indeed gory but it's full of CGI and exaggerated things that I disliked it.If this is the new way of making Japanese flicks then I guess I will leave that scene. For the moment things I liked was Vampire Girls vs Frankenstein Girls or Alien vs Ninja but Helldriver wasn't my thing. I can dig weird story lines but this was over the top. But I won't give up, I would like to see Erotibot with Asami, let's hope this is old school HK III. Maybe Yoshihiro Nishimura, the director, should better staid at his make-up department (Tokyo Gore Police or Machine Girl).Gore 5/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 4/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 1/5

Interesting mix of Zombie and Gore action film, with many references to many modern fantasy and sci-fi movies and Japanese gore taste for fine bleeding fans. With some elements taken from the 'trifids', some post-apocalyptic scenes like Carpenter's Rescue from NY, some characters like Blade Runner's ones, references to I'm Legend and many more, this extra-large mesh-up film can be either disgusting and creative the most of times. Following with the well known Japanese tradition of telling the story with a bunch of flashbacks and flash-forwards, it contains lots of absurdities and null deployed characters, lots of story lines, irregular tempo and several flashes of very very intense action with astounding sound. For these actions it deserve to be watched, but for the others it's a waste of time, unless gore zombie films are your main interest.