It's at the serious end of the genre of "rubbery Japanese gorefest". The director has a sense of humour, but it's not a gag film. You're meant to watch it straight. It's action/horror. The deaths and injuries can be icky, the characterisation is better than it needed to be and the ending's somewhat downbeat.

There's a village of zombie samurai who put heads on spikes. They make a collection. Meanwhile, the living humans include: (a) a nice family of four who were out for a drive in the country, (b) three thuggish criminals and (c) two cops who like guns. What happens is straightforward and gory. If you've ever been annoyed when films don't show enough blood after the severing of body parts, here you'll be satisfied. The Zombie Samurai isn't any old zombie (no biting, no shambling), but he has a sword and he can shrug off bullets. (A shotgun at point-blank range will knock him backwards, but that's all.)

Zombies aren't the only threat. Those criminals are unpleasant and you'd almost prefer the Zombie Samurai.

Two women try to use sex to achieve their goals, but the film has no nudity. The last act contains shocking developments and a past lives revelation. I was impressed by the little boy's characterisation, because he has some. You'd expect him to be the Token Child Actor with the absolute minimum of dialogue and acting responsibilities, but he repeatedly gets character points and/or story beats. Some of those count as foreshadowing.

Some big things don't make sense, but I think I can explain them. Someone finds a samurai sword and deliberately cuts their head off. Why? (Answer: the past lives thing, which we know from the ending can override the will of the living host.) Why does that bloke get up after being shot four times? (Answer: he's part of the samurai zombie village and hence can rise as the undead, but without realising.)

Tak Sakaguchi's direction has a light touch. He's liable to show particularly cool things two or three times from different angles. The policemen's gun conversation is amusing (including the crotch close-up). I liked the comedy butt monkey fate of Issei Ishida's character, even if I'm not wild about his performance. You'd expect a more strongly sustained reaction after having your penis bitten off. Also, where's Sakaguchi himself? He's in the cast somewhere, but where? Behind the helmet as the Samurai Zombie himself? Put your biggest star front and centre, man!

If you're in the mood for this sort of thing, it's a surprisingly solid film. It's a bit staid and dull compared with other Japanese gore comedies, but it's also better than most of them. It's serious-ish. Basically, more or less. It's horror, alongside the action. Heroes and anti-heroes are trying to survive, with mixed success. The unlikeliest people can become admirable, but there are also darker surprises. This movie's okay, actually.