Kazuyoshi Kumakiri	...	(Director)
Tomohiro Koizumi, Takashi Ujita	...	(Writer)
Pistol Takehara	...	Nanba
Masanobu Ando	...	Ishioka
Maki Sakai	...	Eiko
Noriko Eguchi	...	Ishioka's wife
Yusuke Kamiji	...	Ishioka's colleague
Megumi Satô	...	Mami
Susumu Terajima	...	Ochiai
Kôji Wakamatsu	...	Oji-san
Kiyoaki Hashimoto	...	Cinematographer
Masanobu Andô	...	Ishioka
Yûsuke Kamiji	...	Ishioka's colleague
Shûji Yamamoto	...	Secretary
Akainu	...	Composer

Comments: This is a hard film to describe except to say that it's deadpan funny, delightful and successful in it's earnest attempt to remain off-kilter. It's about two guys who are bummed out their dreams of becoming baseball stars didn't pan out, and a girl who loves baseball and baseball players. One of the guys was a pitcher, played with finely nuanced body language by Masanobu Ando, who's become a bicycle cop and hates everything except himself. He uses his position of authority to do things like get shoplifting housewives to show him the color of their underwear. The other guy is a batter (of unknown position), played by Pistol Takehara, who still wants to make it, practicing his swing a thousand times a day. He's a little numb in the noggin, having been beaned by the bicycle cop pitcher ten years ago and becomes an accomplice in love and illegal activities with a drunken, violent woman who shares his love of baseball. The show stealing woman is played way over the top by Maki Sakai, and now I'm sort of in love with her myself. I generally dislike watching actors play drunk, but with the exception of some of her stumbling, Sakai creates a believable and engaging character who's pushing forty, still hot, not so nice, but fun to have around. She had to wear prosthetics to round out her role as "the chick with a rack".

Green Mind, Metal Bats is a low-key, low budget absurd comedy with an edginess that keeps it unpredictable and unsettling. A bit part by Noriko Eguchi, as the pitcher's wife, gets this one a bonus point. Anything with Eguchi is better for it.

Summary: Kuniaki Nanba is 27 years old, 180cm, 80kg, bats right, throws right. Born in Tokorozawa and In his high school days he was a promising baseball player, but unfortunately he was on the receiving end of a ferocious bean ball to the head. Since then he has worked in a shipping company and now works in a convenient store. One of his co-workers stops to talk to Nanba on her way out of the store and asks “Could you stop watching me? You give me the creeps.”

He soon encounters Eiko, an alcoholic with a psychotic personality. The thing that they have in common is their love of baseball. The spend nights together watching baseball games at home and drinking beers. When they are out of money, they go out looking for money in all sorts of illegal ways. This inevitably gets the attention of Ishiioka, a local police officer in their neighborhood. Ishioka is familiar with Nanba, because he is the one that beaned Nanba in the head as a high school baseball player.