In short: Top Knot Detective (2017)

At first, it appears as if this Australian fake documentary directed by Aaron McCann and Dominic Pearce about the history of a lost weird Japanese samurai show made by mad genius/talentless hack Takashi Takomoto (Toshi Okuaki) which only still exists on VHS taken from its single Australian TV broadcast, is making it somewhat easy on itself by wallowing in the old “whacky and weird Japanese” tropes. However, once it gets going it becomes clear that many of its jokes may be based on weird and whacky Japanese-ness, but it is highly specific exaggeration based on elements and behaviours perfectly in line with things that exist in actual Japanese pop culture, only more so.

So we get things like a variety interview show whose shtick is that the interviewees are surrounded by a bunch of adorable kittens, or a tokusatsu character named Timestryker who mixes the logical ingredients of baseball bats and time travel – I can’t help but imagine someone working for Toei/Bandai watching this and getting really rather angry they didn’t come up with that one first. The film is also having its way with the corporatism of this part of Japanese pop culture (in reality a degree of corporatism that makes the American entertainment industry look downright amateurish – and nice), while coming up with at least one wonderful and bizarre thing a second. But the film is more ambitious still, also making fun of the documentary format it is faking in various ways, and adding something of a plot as well as a not completely resolved murder mystery (Takamoto was framed, I tell you!) to proceedings. Add to this the perfect tone of the mock-crappy bits of Takamoto’s show we are allowed to see that’s clearly made with great love for genius shoddy film and TV making, and the surprisingly deft characterisation of the talking heads telling us this tale, and there’s basically nothing not to like here.


Top Knot Detective would be a lovely film already if it only were full of the mostly pretty great jokes it contains, but it also works as a love letter to the kind of things in pop culture I – and most probably at least half of my ten readers  - love, too.