I remember the buzz surrounding Makoto Nagahisa’s crazy directorial debut We Are Little Zombies at Sundance last year. Nobody knew quite what to make of it, or how to explain it to me what it was. And now I see why. The story follows four orphans who get over the deaths of their parents by indulging in rock music, but that is just the barest explanation for a bizarre 8-bit ride so full of flash and color, Oscilloscope is offering a coloring book to go with it.
Literally, the synth sounds of Nintendo Entertainment System fuel much of the music, more than 90 songs, that power this strange, nostalgic journey. The trailer begins with one of the orphaned kids reliving the moment he found out about his parents’ death as if it were an episode of Punk’d, and that’s just the tip of the weirdness iceberg.
SYNOPSIS: When four young orphans—Hikari, Ikuko, Ishi, and Takemura—first meet, their parents’ bodies are being turned into dust, like fine Parmesan atop a plate of spaghetti Bolognese, and yet none of them can shed a tear. They are like zombies; devoid of all emotion. With no family, no future, no dreams, and no way to move forward, the young teens decide that the first level of this new existence involves salvaging a gaming console, an old electric bass, and a charred wok from their former homes—just enough to start a band-and then conquer the world.
The cast includes Keita Ninomiya, Satoshi Mizuno, Mondo Okumura, Sena Nakajima, Rinko Kikuchi, and more. Oscilloscope has yet to give We Are Little Zombies a set release date, but probably later this year.
