‘Monster Island’ Strips the Creature Feature Down to Its Bloody Essentials
Mike Wiluan’s Monster Island is the phrase “understood the assignment” in its most badass and sanguinary form. Wiluan takes a survival story set during World War II and purées it with martial arts choreography and monster tropes, resulting in a lean, grisly creature feature that thrills just long enough not to get boring. The story, about enemies working together against a greater threat while learning compassion along the way, doesn’t seek to invent the narrative wheel. But it reminds us why this particular wheel has spun and endured for so long.
Wiluan wastes no time in propelling viewers into the destabilizing nature of war, and it’s these battle set pieces that anchor the film’s momentum throughout. Within the bunker of a ship, Japanese prisoner Saito (Dean Fujioka) is chained to another captive, British soldier Bronson (Callum Woodhouse). Both of them will be sentenced to death when the ship reaches Japan; Saito has been labeled as a traitor by his comrades, due to a transgression that isn’t revealed until the end of the film.
