Battlefield Baseball (2003)

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I love zombie movies, and I love baseball (and baseball movies, too). So the stars seemed to have aligned when I learned of Battlefield Baseball. Sadly, the film leaves much to be desired.There's little in the way of zombie mayhem--most of the action, incredibly, happens off screen--and even less baseball. The screenplay commits a serious error by declaring, via the field umpire, that the rules of Battlefield Baseball are "there are no rules". As a result, this 'baseball' game consists of little more than a few fist fights with some poor special effects thrown in for good measure.There are a few amusing moments: Jubei's flashback to his father's death, for example, involves the most obscenely large catcher's mitt ever seen, but by and large, this is a poor tribute to the films of Takashi Miike.

Battlefield Baseball (2003) is a fine adaptation of a Japanese manga comic. The movie is very close to the original source. It's filled with cheesy sentiment, cartoon violence, music and over exaggerated slapstick humor. A high school baseball team's manager wants to take his team to the next level. But he's been plagued by a re-occurring nightmare. A team of zombie players has crushed and killed his team in brutal fashion. One day his worse fears come true when he looks into the paper and finds his team playing against the undead brutal team from Gedo. The manage and school officials know that the team doesn't stand a chance against this team. Unless he can convince the new transfer student to play for his school's baseball team. Will the new kid play for the team? Do they have a chance against the undead ball team? Find out when you watch Battlefield Baseball!!Not a classic film but it's highly entertaining. It's a total manga film so be prepared for cheesy melodrama, exaggerated violence, adult humor and musical numbers!!Highly recommended.

From the star and assistant director of personal favourite VERSUS comes what may best be described as SHAOLIN SOCCER as seen through the eyes of the Takashi Miike that made HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS. i.e. one of the strangest, campest and most ridiculous films the world has ever seen.Tak Sakaguchi plays "Jubei Baseball", a student with extraodinary baseball talent that has sworn off the sport because of... something that happened earlier. He moves to a new school where the principal has but one dream, baseball victory... which he believes he is about to achieve until he discovers his opponents are a team of zombies renowned for not leaving their opponents alive at the end of a game. Can Jubei be persuaded to join the team and help them achieve victory?Battlefield Baseball is based on a manga, and it shows - the styling of the film is extremely comic-book like, coupled with bizarre soap opera styled melodrama. Unfortunately, the film suffers from an extremely low budget that robs it of most of the coolness that it could have had - and it shows that Ryuhei Kitamura was the real talent behind making VERSUS go so far beyond its budget, not his AD. The acting in the film is outright appalling, but this was probably at least partially deliberate - the extreme overacting and mugging is almost appropriate to the absurdity of the whole film, but isn't carried off with the kind of class or style that could have made it work better.BB is undoubtedly a fun film, with some of the most unusual lines and events you will see - but it's ultimately too trashy even to get the "cult classic" label (and mainstream classic was never on the cards) - but it is an interesting curio, and Yudai Yamaguchi is definitely tagged for further observation.6/10

I saw Battlefield Baseball at the Fantasy Film Festival in Munich, and it's really one of the funniest movies i've ever seen in my live! I laughed actually the whole 87 minutes! The story is basically about a High School Baseball Team which has to face the brutal Killer Team of the Gedo High in a Baseball Match to death. I don't want to tell u anything about the funny scenes, 'cause they are difficult to explain to someone who hasn't seen the film. You have to see them, to believe it! So if u get the chance to see this awesome movie then GO AND SEE IT!! It's really worth it! 10 out of 10