Three idols are bouncing around happily on stage. Once offstage, though, they get bitchy.

KAMIYA MIKU (actress: Asakawa Nana): "Yuririn, your singing was off. Everyone will realise you suck. You too, Moe. You're not keeping up at all with the steps. Especially with the new dance."

MOE (actress: Abe Yumeri): "I still haven't perfected that one yet."

KAMIYA MIKU: "Then practice harder! Both of you, stop wasting time eating snacks before the show!"

YURIRIN (actress: Ozawa Runa): "You really piss me off. Can't you do something about your attitude? Have you forgotten I'm the leader?"

KAMIYA MIKU: "And have you forgotten that I'm centre stage? Tokyo 27-ku would be finished without me."

MOE: "Yes, but..."

YURIRIN: "That's not the point. This is a team effort."

KAMIYA MIKU: "You guys don't get it! Sure, it may be late night on a local channel, but we're about to get our own TV show! We have a shot at a concert at a big venue. We're not underground any more! We need to get it together, now. Get more of a sense of danger! Sense of danger!"

...whereupon she's bitten by a zombie. It came up in the lift and was standing right behind her. She hadn't noticed.

The film's a zombie horror-comedy, more or less. It's mostly a straight zombie film, with a protagonist who's on the run because she's facing 72 hours of quarantine followed by euthanasia. She hasn't accepted her fate, though. She worked hard to get where she is as an artist. "I failed audition after audition, even though I'm cute and buxom. I can't die until I become a household name and sing at top venues!"

She approaches a private detective, Inuta Mitsuo (actor: Itokazu Shogen), because she heard about a possible cure for the zombie virus from a trashy magazine that publishes sensationalist garbage. Read everything in the next issue! Mitsuo's expectations are in the toilet, but on investigating they find that the magazine's offices burned down, killing all the staff, and there wasn't a peep about all this on the news. Someone suppressed the information.

Something's going on. Our heroes start following leads.

The comedy elements involve idol fans. Two fanboys role-play Jedi Knights, Sherlock Holmes and Fist of the North Star in trying to save their heroine. Later, a surprise fangirl revelation made me laugh and made the relevant character far more entertaining.

There are silly zombies with alarming fighting skills, although the majority are mindless shamblers. The Big-Boobed Babyface Idol Fan Zombies have slick athletic moves, while elsewhere a mad scientist has been experimenting. One of his creations is played by Asami, although unfortunately she's masked and you'll only know it's her from the credits. There's also a pig-headed zombie who parries bullets and a Chinese soldier with a machine-gun. Finally, zombies will go into a combat frenzy if they hear Wagner's Ride of The Valkyries.

Zombie hunters have superhero-level combat skills and are liable to get off on killing. They belong to a Hunters' Organisation that only has money and power because the world's full of zombies. Spot the conflict of interest.

The film contains plausibility hiccups. Our heroes are improbably resistant to bullets and other injuries, for instance. There are silly zombies and unconvincing fight scenes, e.g. lots of sword fights in which nothing ever gets sliced, although there's an impaling. Nonetheless, it's quite a good film. I enjoyed it. The acting's solid, although the cast includes real idols (from Super GiRLS and Solidemo). Shogen has screen presence. The film made me laugh, but it's basically serious and capable of being horrible, e.g. what the baddies had done with Alicia. The state of her... brrrr. Main characters can die. The relationship between the three members of Tokyo 27-ku is deeper than it looked. The plausibility failure at the end is at least heartwarming.

Yeah, this one's worth a look. I'd have enjoyed it even without the jokes, but then anything's improved by a sense of humour. There's even Asami (technically).