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.
Monster Island
3.5
/5
- Release Date
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April 3, 2025
- Runtime
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83 Minutes
- Director
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Mike Wiluan
- Writers
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Mike Wiluan
Immersive Combat Sequences Highlight the Chaos of War
Then Allied forces attack the ship, and Saito uses the chaos as an opportunity to escape. It’s in this siege
sequence that Wiluan and editor Lim Yen embrace the film’s low budget, using obfuscation to immerse the viewer in the character’s POV. As Saito tries to flee, his sense of place is disoriented even when he steps outside, where the only guiding elements are the sounds of whirring airplanes and screaming soldiers, his path off the boat illuminated solely by the light of steady explosions and streaming gunfire.
For this sequence, which would likely have cost much more had it been done in the daylight or tried to showcase the whole naval assault, Wiluan only needs to show as much as Saito sees. This helps ground the conflict on a personal level. It’s a reminder that less is more, and the fact that Saito can’t tell friend from foe in the enveloping darkness is appropriate, given that he wouldn’t be welcome on either side. The glimpses we see are enough to situate us in Saito’s mind and speak to how seemingly futile human resilience seems in comparison to war’s machines.
Touching Relationships Meet Bloody Monster Mayhem
After that opening, the film thankfully wastes no time getting to the “monster” of its title. Wiluan understands that, for all the ways he wants to comment on the inhumanity of war, we’ve come to see creature carnage. Saito wakes up stranded on a nearby island and is dismayed that the wounds and lacerations he received from the shipwreck didn’t tear away the chain he shares with Bronson. The two begin to fight, their brawl taking them dangerously close to the water they just escaped from. Then Bronson is attacked by a creature that looks as if the Amphibian Man from The Shape of Water mated with an Anglerfish and a Xenomorph instead of Sally Hawkins. Wiluan’s kinetic eye is on full display in how he first frames the creature: we see Bronson and Saito’s fight through its hungry eyes, and every time the duo threatens to look in the creature’s direction, the camera dips back underwater. The effect is as playful as it is queasy.
Once Bronson and Saito realize that they’re not only on this island alone, they work through language barriers and ideological differences to fight the monsters that are all around them. This culminates in a standout moment where a group of Japanese soldiers wash ashore from the wreckage and mistake Saito for one of them. Bronson lies in the nearby foliage, sword drawn and ready to fight, while Saito converses with them. The soldiers’ realization that Saito is a prisoner of war coincides with the monster setting its sights on all this fresh meat. What ensues is a cathartic and bloody set piece that reaffirms that there’s no joy more satisfying than seeing the powerful, cruel and inhumane get their comeuppance by the hand of otherworldly power. Wiluan seems to understand that monsters work best when they challenge us to recognize our own mortality and confront our hubris.
Furthermore, while Saito’s and Bronson’s personalities are sanded down to their most functional form, the technique is both compelling and truthful. Any type of conflict — to say nothing of war — can force people to become fast friends and bond out of necessity. That necessity can act as the groundwork for a deeper intimacy that might not have been possible otherwise, and when Saito and Bronson go from enemies to comrades, the speed of their connection is both touching and realistic.
Wiluan’s production credits include The Night Comes For Us and Monkey Man, and the main drawback of Monster Island is that it lacks the gracefully brutal choreography and unbroken takes of mayhem of those films. For every clever conceit, there are at least two instances where Wiluan’s editing and camera work actively get in the way of the story. Monster Island is hesitant to trust the camera to properly capture the chaos, often beginning with a cool moment, hastily chopping up the in-between action and lingering on the aftermath of a clever kill or fight scene. Both the design of the creature and the commitment of the actors would have been better served by camerawork that was more appreciative of them.
Still, there’s a primal power in how Monster Island distills its most essential ingredients to craft a lively and brutal monster movie. It could have benefited from more relaxed editing that would allow its production design and set pieces to shine, but that doesn’t take away the fun of watching a familiar story executed with contemporary prowess and direction.
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