When I first heard the premise for Aachi and Ssipak, I though it was going to be one of those films that revolve mainly around toilet humour and go to extreme moments of crudeness. But I was pleasantly surprised that for the greater whole this isn’t the case. A&S actually is rarely about the goings on behind that cubicle door and is more concerned about the end result: the “Juicybars”.
In the alternate future proposed in the film, energy is scarce, so they use human excrement for power. Every time someone goes to the toilet, a chip implanted in them at birth registers the ‘transaction’ and in return for doing their duty for their country they get highly addictive juicybars. Some have become so addicted that their continued use of the bars has turned them into deformed mutants that have banded together in a gang known as the Diaper Gang (picture a Smurf, take away discernable facial features and ears, turn hat into a kind of baby’s bonnet, steal their pants and leave a brown cloth as a replacement and then give them automatic weapons).
In this future we meet Aachi and Ssipak, two low level street thugs that get by stealing other peoples hard-earned juicybars. Through a bunch of crazy events they end up meeting a porn actress named Beautiful who has been implanted by the bad guys with a lot of the chips needed for the registration of the ‘transaction’. Upon discovering this the three band together to become bigger players in the juicybar trade and live the high life. For a while anyway.
It all goes pear shaped when the government, led by a small girl with a forehead twice the size of her actual head, the Diaper Gang and a rival gang all attack at the same time in a scene that echoes of True Romance’s finale. Beautiful gets caught by the Diaper Gang, who go on a city wide rampage in celebration and it’s up to Aachi (who just wants to go back to the lifestyle he’s become accustomed to) and Ssipak (who wants to get back Beautiful back for love) to go and save the day.
There is a little bit more than that involving loyalty, friendship, robot cops, porn directors and more references to movies than movie nerds can poke a stick at (the finale includes a take on the mine cart chase of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) and it really kicks ass in the action department, particularly when the super robot cop is on the loose.
The film is animated in a strange style in that backgrounds are stunningly animated but the characters and items they interact with are done in a simpler animation style. Some may be put off by this but for the most part I found it served the piece well and gave the characters a little something extra to stand out more. The only problem I have with the animation is the design of the government leader little girl character – her forehead is just way too big for a head and body her size and I can quite easily say it freaked me out more than the mutant baby/chest thing from Total Recall.
This is a decent film and anyone looking for a combination of humour, action and animation will probably enjoy it if they can get past the style of the animation. Also remember what it says on the front of the box: “Not suitable for Kiddies”. It seems strange that it was released by Eastern Eye, who does live action Asian film fare, and not Madman who usually look after the animation side of things.