Hot Spring Shark Attack

There are good shark movies and there are bad shark movies. But then there’s the bat-s**t-insane shark movies, of which we have a new contender for the king of the crazy biters, Morihito Inoue’s Hot Spring Shark Attack.

After a series of mysterious deaths of visitors in the Atsumi city prefecture, it is soon discovered that the culprits behind the killings are a group of ancient sharks that have been freed from the slumber in the dark depths of the ocean by foundational drilling for the construction of a massive resort to dominate the tourist market and bring prosperity to the city.

But the ancient sharks are eating up the tourists, having found a passage from their underwater kingdom up through the natural thermal pool water passage, which feeds hot springs in the area.

The retiring chief of police is forced to team up with scientists in order to combat this fishy menace. Still, there’s a lot more to this wildly entertaining, absurd battle between ancient monsters of the deep and the might of the Japanese navy. Smashed together like the plots of Jaws meets Piranha, Hot Spring Shark Attack combines not just those twin classic narratives, but it also infuses them with the joyful blundering of films like Ghost Shark, Sharknado, stir-fried together with Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and RoboGeisha.

A shocking moment as a woman is attacked by a shark in Hot Spring Shark Attack.

“Ancient sharks… freed from the slumber in the dark depths of the ocean.”

Yet, just when you think the movie is done with you and the answer to the turmoil of the citizens of Atsumi is in the bag, that’s when things get interesting. With the chief of police injured, it then falls to the once corrupt and money-hungry mayor, a lone scientist, and a mostly silent, muscle-bound stranger who appears out of the ocean to help fight an army of incoming sharks like a discount Aquaman. The three join forces in a 3D-printed submersible and go off to end the shark attacks before the navy blows up the city.

The situation goes from bad to worse when the newly risen sharks display their assortment of deadly talents, such as toxically flammable breath, along with the ability to hurl electromagnetic beams, which cripple and finally destroy one of the country’s most elite first-strike weapons.

It’s a pure bizarre spectacle that combines with the chaos in the end to make this, speaking of Aquaman, a million times more entertaining than that truly deplorable sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Luckily, even minus Momoa and Guinness, Inoue’s Hot Spring Shark Attack is a hoot and holler at every turn with hilariously enthusiastic performances from Kiyofumi Kaneko as the stand-in for Chief Brody and Mio Takai as the casually optimistic scientist.

By the time you think you’ve seen it all, a call-back to one of the great moments in shark-cinema history lands like the cherry on the ridiculously pleasurable sundae, which though it contains a mouthful of flavors fighting for supremacy, Hot Spring Shark Attack might just the equivalent to a sumptuous banquet that feels like it could have been purchased for a convenience store. But trust me, it’s sharksploitation at its finest.