It’s been a little over a week since Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo opened in theaters across Japan and the film has already grossed 2.8 billion yen (about US$34 million), making it the most successful film of the year domestically.

If you still can’t get enough Eva, Chinese artist Lu Yang has created a short tribute film for the celebrated animated series that involves high fashion, interpretive dance, and Chinese fire cupping.

True to the spirit of Evangelion, the film is artistic, bizarre, and slightly disturbing.

The film is called The Beast and is a real-life recreation of the iconic scene from the second film, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, in which the large red humanoid robot, Evangelion Unit 02, goes into “beast mode” to defeat the enemy Angel:

Creator Lu Yang made the film as part of a fashion film project for the Chinese fashion and lifestyle magazine Modern Weekly. Yang worked with a stylist to come up with the look for the third Angel and antagonist of her film, Sachiel.

To create the berserked Evangelion Unit 02, Yang used a method of traditional Chinese medicine called cupping therapy, in which a cup is used to create a local suction on the skin. While receiving a kind of cupping therapy called fire cupping to treat her own rheumatic problems, Yang thought the sight of her back covered with wooden cups resembled Unit 02 in beast mode. She had wanted to use a real person to play Eva Unit 02, and so she got the idea to have her own personal physician come and fire cup the actor’s back for filming.

To see more of Lu Yang’s work, check out her homepage here, or read more about the making of The Beast at The Creator’s Project blog here.

And if you thought The Beast was bizarre, take a look at her project to create an underwater ballet dance troupe by reanimating the lower halves of dead frogs:

Source: ITMedia, Lu Yang, the creator’s project