Despite
what you may have heard, punk is not dead yet. It just needs a bit of theatrics
and costuming to perk it up. The Japanese band Peelander-Z is all over that.
Their music is whatever, but their ruckus stage shows combine elements of Jackass, Sun Ra, and the Power Rangers. They
are definitely a cult act, but they have sort of made a go of it. However, they
are about to experience a rocky patch of soul-searching in Jonathan Yi &
Michael Haertlein’s Mad Tiger (trailer here), which screens
during this year’s DOC NYC.
Supposedly
Peelander-Z hails from Planet Peelander. Why have they come to Earth? To rock,
dummy. Peelander Yellow (a.k.a. Kengo Hioki, he’s the one with the bright
yellow hair) has fronted the band since 1998, which is an eternity in punk
time. For twelve of those years, Peelander Red has been their bass player and the
go-to-guy for really off-the-wall physical stunts. When he decides to retire, Peelander
Yellow quickly replaces him with Peelander Purple, his old friend from the dark
side of Peelander. However, both Yellow and Red have trouble finding the
closure they were hoping to reach.
Let’s
be honest. Peelander Z is more punk than the old school punk of the late 1970s.
Take for instance Peelander Yellow’s Letterman tooth gap. He originally broke
his front tooth during a performance at Bonnaroo, but he gave up trying to
replace it with a crown, because he kept breaking those as well.
Yi
(who directed Peelander-Z’s “So Many Mike” video) and Haertlein vividly capture
the bedlam of the Peelander experience, but they also document some backstage
drama worthy of the old Behind the Music docu-series.
They might be kind of nuts, but they have the same problems as more
conventional bands. They also need more time for dying their hair, but
fortunately they have a cool band stylist with a good sense of humor.
Mad Tiger is a ton of fun,
but it also takes Peelander Yellow’s sudden feelings of spiritual emptiness
seriously. Believe it or not, it might just include the most positive, sympathetic
depiction of Christianity in any DOC NYC film this year, due to the scenes of
Yellow reconnecting with his converted family in Japan. Sure, there are plenty
of giant squids in Mad Tiger (named
for one of their greatest hits), yet is also an acutely human film, in an
intergalactic kind of way.
