A blood-soaked vengeance tale from Japan drew the biggest boos in the race for the Cannes Film Festival's top prize Monday, with critics savaging a "risible" parade of cliches.
Controversial Japanese director Takashi Miike unveiled "Shield of Straw" (Wara No Tate) about a nationwide bounty hunt for a child rapist who murders the seven-year-old granddaughter of a billionaire politician.
The man offers a one-billion-yen (USD 9.7-million) reward for the criminal's capture and killing.
The offer touches off a frenzy in the country, sending hordes of would-be vigilantes on the chase for the murderer.
Fearing for his life, the paedophile turns himself in and a team of cops -- a widower whose wife was killed by a drunk driver and a single mother -- see it as their duty to protect him at all costs despite his vile crimes.
But they must fend off all manner of armed assailants -- some driven by greed for the reward and others, crime victims themselves who feel let down by the system, by a desire for a delayed sense of justice.
The picture, one of 20 vying for the Palme d'Or award, got off to a promising start with impromptu applause for a spectacular ambush scene executed with military precision.
But reviewers said the film went off the rails during a bullet-train scene in which the cops deliver long speeches about their personal motivations and reflections on the moral quandary they face over risking their lives to guard a remorseless killer, only pausing to brutally dispatch blood-thirsty bounty-hunters.
British critic Geoff Andrew took to Twitter to deride "risibly overacted, overemphatic nonsense that constantly states the obvious cliche".
Movie magazine CineVue posted a review within minutes giving the picture one star out of five and calling it a "stone-cold dud" while cult film watcher Electric Sheep said it went "down like a lead balloon".
The Irish Times reviewer, however, had a few kind words for the "classy action sequences" and predicted a big-budget Hollywood remake.
"Few action movies have been so dedicated to the cause of liberal democracy and trial by jury. Shield of Straw is the anti-Dirty Harry," it wrote, referring to the iconic Clint Eastwood franchise.
Miike, a remarkably prolific director whose work has been banned in some countries for excessive gore, lamented that the Japanese cinema industry was turning its back on what he called a proud tradition of blockbuster action movies.
"It's not the viewers who don't want to see these films, it's the professionals, the people who make films," he told reporters.
