X-Cross – Review

I decided to watch X-Cross after picking it up at my local entertainment exchange for just £2. Some may have seen this as a warning; not just the measly price but director Kenta Fukasaku is also been responsible for Yoyo Girl Cop and Battle Royale II. Now sure Battle Royale did have pretty enormous shoes to fill, but the ending was so unpleasant that when I watch the film now (like, never) I turn it off before the ‘Kenta’ ending and pretend it never happened. Besides this misdemeanour I still had faith in Kenta Fukasaku and I’m glad I did as X-Cross wasn’t as awful as either of its predecessors, anything precarious was instantly redeemed through utter hilarity.

X-Cross is about two girls, Shiyori and Aiko, who decide to go to a spa after Shiyori has broken up with her boyfriend; typical ‘girlie weekend’ crap that always ends badly in horror movies. Anyway, it turns out that they arrive at this creepy village in which the villagers basically amputate girls’ legs for some sort of crazy ancient tradition, leaving the two friends to work together through the use of their mobile phones to escape the village. As absolutely daft as that sounds (and I don’t disagree that the entire film is a little juvenile) there is more to the story and it’s actually relatively captivating.

When making awful films which may one day become cult classics, there’s that one thing that seems like it might perhaps improve said film; disorder the chronology of the scenes. I have a massive problem with jumbling scenes. Basically, if it’s not essential then don’t do it because it will confuse me and then I’ll give you a bad review. Weirdly though, X-Cross manages to pull it off with its “two-sides-to-every-story” approach. The beginning was a little unfathomable but during the latter half I was all ‘Ohh, I get it!” But even when I didn’t really know what was going on, I didn’t really care as I was kept amused by a peculiar and seemingly immortal witch-girl/Lolita running around after the girls, attempting to inflict her massive scissors onto their limbs.

X-Cross really isn’t as bad as it sounds, above everything it is fantastically entertaining but definitely more of a black comedy, I don’t know who labelled it a horror but they were mistaken. I did find myself rolling my eyes at some of the stupidity I was exposed to; things like crippled men running faster than some of the cars and fighting better than me after a few drinks, the medical inaccuracies (a tendon on the outside of your muscle, anyone?) At one point Aiko fends off the villagers by flashing her camera at them so that they get confused and stop chasing her, as if they were kittens or something? Some of the acting is pretty poor, especially the douche-bag boyfriend whose character makes little-to-no sense at the best of times. I’m really not selling this movie very well am I? Do me a favour; watch it and tell me what you think. I’m genuinely interested.