Aachi & Ssipak (aka: Achi-wa ssipak) — movie review — screener!

by Kris   ⋅   May 20, 2007   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

Aachi & Ssipak has no shame. The Korean animation touches upon almost every taboo subject and exaggerates it, which can make it comical for some, perturbing for others. They got yer violence, drugs, bondage, and something you don’t see too often in cartoons: poo. In fact, the entire plot revolves around the smelly brown stuff. In the somewhat near future, when humans have depleted all of Earth’s resources, excrement will be the new fuel. Through anal ring microchip implants, the government monitors defecation, and rewards citizens with highly addictive popsicles called “juicybars”.

Aachi and Ssipak are two juicybar blackmarket peddlers (they steal the treats from unsuspecting public restroom patrons) with two main life goals: make money and elude enemies. Not a particularly brilliant duo, they are successful in neither; there are many prolonged scenes of their faces getting pummeled, one even features Aachi giggling hysterically afterwards due to the moronic irony. Although Aachi, short with a shock of spiky red hair, isn’t a typical “good guy”, you quickly realize that there are no good guys in this story, so he becomes slightly endearing by default. Ssipak, tall and bald, is the brave grunt, although his heroism stems from hormones. Having been ratted out by their “friend” Jimmy and caught by the local kingpin (whose hideout is ironically in prison), Aachi and Ssipak meet the very first, and very least, in a series of problems.

Here’s where things begin to intersect, which develops into the wonderful ride Aachi & Ssipak takes us on. Enter Jimmy, possibly modeled after Hendrix, a gay director whose latest visions meld BDSM porn with inflated ideals of a girl that can save the world with her blessed butt. The Diaper King (leader of a gang of tiny blue mutants who are unable to poop nor reproduce as a direct result of juicybar addiction) finds a way to make Jimmy’s dreams a reality by using aspiring actress Beautiful (Ssipak’s latest crush) and enlisting the help of Dr. Strange (a Dr. Frankenstein type mad scientist who creates cyborgs out of corpses). Dr. Strange had formerly built a mega soldier to help decimate the Diaper Gang under the tyrannical rule of the kewpie Blythe-look-alike cigar-chomping Commander-in-Chief.

Beautiful, a girl with blue hair, blue eyes, blue lips is injected with multiple anal chips by Jimmy and the Diaper King, but escapes with Aachi and Ssipak. Beautiful takes the boys on a realistic rollercoaster romp where one moment they are rolling around in riches and then back to being pummeled in poverty.

While the character list is long and the subject matter chaotic, Aachi & Ssipak keeps it together with a steady storyline and a steady flow of action, blood and laughs. There are incredibly choreographed action sequences, including a mine car chase straight out of Indiana Jones. There is an artful mix of dusky painted backdrops and vibrant cartoonish foregrounds juxtaposing casual decapitations. There are wacky advertisements featuring constipated vintage Mickey Mouse and Kim Jong-Il straight out of Japanese marketing minds. Although at first glance, the humor can be taken as trite or childish, there are healthy warning elements describing human evils and an anarchistic future where a ruthless villain, a government official, two opportunists and an innocent bystander are one-in-the-same.

SF Bay Area Residents: Aachi & Ssipak will be premiering at SFIndie’s Another Hole in the Head Festival on June 2nd and 9th, 2007

About the Author

Kris Kobayashi-Nelson says these directors/screenwriters rarely disappoint: Peter Greenaway, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Gus van Sant. Gregg Araki. Kris claims that Jake Gyllenhaal, Cillian Murphy, Desmond Harrington and Casey Affleck are much more than pretty faces.

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