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Virus

Andrew Heskins — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:00:02 +0000

We keep the disaster movie theme going with a look at a near lost pandemic thriller from director Kinji Fukasaku, best known for Battle Royale…

With the release of The SInking Of Japan earlier this week, we take a look at another Japanese disaster movie, this time with a surprisingly Western cast.

The world as we know it is coming to an end, as a virus known only as Italian Flu (now, now, no racist jokes about it’s effects!) spreads amongst the populace. In fact the virus is manmade, designed for germ warfare, no vaccine exists. The only survivors are international groups of scientists based in Antarctica, who must now find a way to work together to build a new world.

Only when scientist Doctor Shûzô Yoshizumi (Masao Kusakari, Black Kiss) discovers that Washington will get rocked by an earthquake, a desperate mission begins to switch off an nuclear automatic retaliation system before it destroys the planet and even their own sanctuary.

My first run in with Virus was as a podcast from Cult of UHF, those exponents of films that have for one reason or another fallen into the public domain, cheekily released amid the highpoint of fears about the H1N1 virus spiralling out of control. Full of several hammy performances from several B-list American actors of the time, it was easy to dismiss as a terrible low-budget B movie.

Only thing was many of these actors could still get reasonable leading roles: Olivia Hussey (Black Christmas, Romeo & Juliet); Glenn Ford; Robert Vaughn; Geroge Kennedy; Chuck Connors; Henry Silva; Bo Svenson. It’s fun to see the revamped Battlestar Galactica’s Commander Adama Edward James Olmos and wonder if he ever looked young?

Then there was the slight unevenness in the story. The Japanese protagonists seemed quite important, but we hardly got to see them. It turns out that this was a Japanese production, directed by Kinji Fukasaku, whose long filmmaking career included Battle Royale, Triple Cross, Legend of Eight Samurai and Tora! Tora! Tora!.

This was, of course, the heavily abridged US cut of the film, which not only loses some 50-odd minutes from the film, mainly from the Japanese subplots, but also rearranges the footage to it’s own (and often confusing) end. This wasn’t helped by the fact the Cult of UHF version rather helpfully left what remained of the parts in Japanese without subtitles!

Yet despite all this, there was definitely some merit to the film. Hell, it might be corny, but not as terrible as you might have thought.

In it’s longer format it recounts far more of Doctor Shûzô’s past, colouring far more effectively his relationship and growing affection for Olivia Hussey’s character Marit. There are title cards detailing the time and spread of the virus. Then there’s Shûzô’s epic journey south to reunite with the rest of the surviviors – completely cut from the US edit which is by default far gloomier.

There are some interesting ideas tackled during the film, not least the topic of a new morality when 830-odd men have survived with just eight women. There’s a certain amount of intelligence applied to the film that survives some of the hokeyness and occasionally melodramatic performances. Masao Kusakari himself, as the lead, is actually pretty good.

Elsewhere even in it’s longer form so of the edits seem a little rough and clumsy around the edges – particularly when Fukasaku tries to show us Japanese society crumbling in the face of this inevitable peril (which seems to involve clubbers stripping off in a disco!). Then there’s the end footage, mainly shots of penguins jumping off into the Antarctic Ocean. Probably the biggest crime of the film, though, is some dire English accents on show by American actors. I mean, Chuck Connors as a British Naval officer? Really?

Those familiar with Terry Nation’s Survivors series, either in it’s original 70s incarnation or the newly revamped version, will be familiar with the prospect of the world wiped out by a disease. (Mind you, Terry borrowed from John Wyndam, so what the hell?) Virus, or Day Of Resurrection as it’s also known, has it’s roots as much in Robert Wise’s adaption of the Michael Crichton novel The Andromeda Strain (and those that followed, like George A. Romeo’s original The Crazies) as it does with the more mainstream disaster movies. Sure, George Kennedy even recites some of the same dialogue he used in Earthquake.

But there’s something else starting to happen in Virus. It mirrors the growing preoccupation with nuclear holocaust, the fear of a third world war that would annihilate us all, and the very real threat of the cold war that dominated the 80s and 80s cinema (having lost the charade of hiding these themes behind alien invasions and gigantic monsters). In that sense it can be seen ahead of the curve. Shûzô’s journey then becomes something of a post-apocalyptic vision, again only really beginning to become widely popular in films like Mad Max.

It’s said film producer Haruki Kadokawa had hoped this would be his breakthrough into the international market. Instead it flopped, and edited up sold to Pay TV states in it’s heavily edited version.

Despite all the DVDs available, the only place you can officially get the full version is as part of the Sonny Chiba Action Set, alongside Golgo 13 and an edited version of The Bullet Train. Which is ironic as Chiba’s screen time is less than 10 minutes, and not even particularly energetic. Ripe for a solo release and wider reappraisal.

The Sinking Of Japan

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:30:40 +0000

Could this be the final sunset for the Rising Sun? It’s bye bye Japan in this big budget disaster movie…

Just what is it with disaster movies? Seems like a few years ago you couldn’t go a summer without someone like Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay turning the world upside down with aliens, asteroids, volcanoes, giant Japanese monsters or adverse climate change. Nowadays the West seems more interested in ‘low key’ horrors, like waking up and finding the place overrun with living dead (be they Zombie or Vampire), than thinking there might be something bigger to worry about than the next Olympic Games, like, I don’t know, prophecies, end of the world, that sort of thing.

Arguably in the wake of manmade horrors like the Twin Towers, or at least human, bureaucratic negligence in the face of natural disasters like Katrina, such films seem to carry less weight with American and British audiences.

The same can’t be said of the East, where the 2004 Tsunami and even more recently the earthquake in the Sichuan province of China (which this film predates) are timely reminders of just how little control we have over the forces of nature. Hence there’s been something of a resurgence of the old school disaster movie. Only last year Korea was in peril from a Tidal Wave (Haeundae) in what is reported to be their 4th biggest film, and now it seems Japan is in similar danger.

Director Shinji Higuchi’s The Sinking Of Japan follows the tried and tested formula, as used by filmmakers since long before the Airport films first took off, and cemented in the movies of the 70s. In fact Sakyo Komatsu’s novel Nippon Chinbotsu was originally adapted into a movie in 1973, at the height of disaster movies popularity.

The main participants meet at the first of what turns out to only the beginning of Japan’s troubles, when an underwater earthquake strikes deep beneath Suruga Bay and causes no end of destruction. Rescue worker Reiko Abe (Kou Shibasaki, Dororo, Memories Of Matsuko, One Missed Call, Battle Royale) save submarine pilot Toshio Onode (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Monkey Magic) and young girl Misaki (Mayuko Fukudo, Death Note: L Change The World, Kamikaze Girls), and their fates become entwined as Japan’s rising sun sinks.

There’s the Prime Minister’s aide, Saori Takamori (Mao Daichi, Saiyûki TV series) confronted with giving her boss the bad news from American scientist that the shifting tectonic plates under Japan will pull her into the sea in the next five years. Then there’s lead scientist Yusuke Tadokoro (Etsushi Toyokawa, 20th Century Boys), for whom Toshio works, who finds out the
American’s have got it wrong by over four years. So the race is on to save Japan, and one of our protagonists will be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Only thing is, will there be anything left of Japan to save?

After such an explosive start director Higuchi spends much of the first half of the film, like so many of the original disaster movie of the 70s (and no doubt the original book) explaining the science to get us to buy into this situation. Like we really care? In fact, at points Higuchi is even repetitive, doubling up on screen captions to information he’s already had lead characters give us.

It’s when the proverbial finally starts to hit the fan that Higuchi. There’s a definite amount of glee in how he shows us different provinces and major cities obliterated, reminiscent of Emmerich’s trademark felling of major cites and landmarks since be blew up the Whitehouse in Independence Day. Oh, it’s fun alright, and probably even more so for Japanese audiences who may be living there now or have relatives and friends in those areas. Higuchi’s long career working behind the scenes in Anime comes to the fore as he realises this destruction with real panache.

His direction of the cast is less impressive, and this is where his film really sinks. The supposed chemistry between cute but unconvincing rescuer Reiko and lame love interest Toshio is non-existent. Considering the scale, centring on such a small collection of protagonists seems to insular, especially when they’re so uninteresting.

Elsewhere Etsushi Toyokawa makes far more of an impact as lead scientist, dominating scenes with his scowl. His past romance with Saori seems far more convincing, and something we’d love to see more of.

The film has the dubious notoriety of containing the last appearance by the great Tetsurô Tanba, whose career spanned five decades including appearances in Bullet Train, Story of Ricky, The Twilight Samurai and Kwaidan.

The story does in fact pick up on recent events in the states like Katrina and 9/11, with officials dragging their heals to save their populace, more interested in gilding their own exit by shipping out national treasures before the populace. There’s also the heroification of the rescue squad, definitely influenced by the firefighters involved in the rescue attempt at the Twin Towers.

Sure it’s a bit long, but there are great effects. I’m just looking forward to a low-budget New Zealand remake. Ahem.

The Sinking Of Japan is released today by MVM.

Written By

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:00:05 +0000

Mad Detective writer/director Wai Ka-fai and lead Lau Ching-wan reunite for a sad, soppy, sloppy mess of a film…

After the brilliant Mad Detective, I’ll admit I was looking forward to the latest pairing between that films writer and co-director Wai Ka-fai and its leading star Lau Ching-wan (who first collaborated back in 1997 on Too Many Ways to Be No. 1) – how wrong can you get?

Several years after the loss of her father in a car accident where she, her mother and brother survived, Melody (Mia Yam, Flying Butterfly) decides to write a novel about him to help her family get over their grieving. Blinded by the accident, in her story the roles are reversed, with their blind father (Lau Ching-wan) the only surviving member of the accident. The character in her novel seems to take on his own life, as he too tries to resurrect his family in a story, but tragedy is not far away for Melody.

And so the loop goes round, deliberately building on the confusing layer upon layer of different narratives in order to propel the suspension. At the core there are some interesting thoughts about alternative realities, and characters and scenarios breaking free of their authors intentions, echoing the Pang Bothers Re-cycle or even Stanger Than Fiction (though I guess we all have Charlie Kaufman to thank for that!). Yet unlike Re-cycle Ka-fai dabbles in these themes rather than commits to them, and as the story becomes more fantastical it lacks the both the Pang’s tension and inventive vision, which was more like Alice In Wonderland for grown-ups.

Indeed, between the overbearingly sentimental tone of the piece from the opening scene, right up to increasingly juvenile ideas of lead young adult Melody – with her brother deciding to appear to his father as a (fluffy and stupid looking) dog, a mysterious ‘Ghost Whisper’ (not Jennifer Love Hewitt!) and casting a young version of herself as the operator of a ghost tram, driving ghosts to the after life – this shambolic piece starts to come off more like a kids movie, something like a Studio Ghibli film with all the life and imagination sucked out of it.

Such naivety jars against the darker themes of coming to terms with bereavement and a young adult so in the pits of despair that she contemplates suicide. In Hong Kong itself the film received an IIB rating, the equivalent of a 15 (sort of). It’s reminiscent of Tsui Hark’s equally disappointing Missing, reiterating that films need for a bizarre and ultimately unengaging take on loss. There’s little here to make you connect or sympathise or care about the characters.

There’s no doubting the enthusiasm with which Lau threw himself into the role, even learning braille, but Written By is a convoluted mess. Neither childlike nor adult in tone it’s over simplistic treatment is evocative of the current trend in Hong Kong filmmaking to treat audiences like idiots. Very disappointing…

Blood: The Last Vampire

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:00:32 +0000

A solid, good looking action film with great fight sequences by choreographer Corey Yuen, but plot inconsistencies and a baffling conclusion don’t make the best for Chris Nahon’s live-action adaption…

Let’s face it, the original anime Blood: The Last Vampire was something of a tease. At 48 minutes long, the original intention of the film as part of a multimedia project including a video game and manga was lost on most of its audience, myself included. Those of us that saw it still loved it as a brilliant, if incomplete variation on Ghost In The Shell.

Nearly a decade on the film has recently become an Anime series, Blood+, loosely based on the original premise, and now Chris Nahon, director of the impressive (and arguably best) Western Jet Li vehicle (Kiss Of The Dragon), has returned to Asia inspiration of a glossy, nicely shot live-action version. Indeed Blood tries hard to reproduce the original, the opening subway scene is all but an exact reproduction, in a 300 or Watchmen sort of a way, down to the original’s yellow-filtered, 70s exposed light.

The first half-hour or so is pretty much an exact re-run of the original, with Saya (Gianna Jun, Il Mare – the original of The Ice House, The Uninvited) part of a mysterious agency going undercover on an American Base high school to coax out deadly vampire demons that feast on humans. Sure, some details have been mucked around with, but the main difference is the addition of fellow student Alice McKee (Allison Miller, 17 Again, Take) who, kind of, takes the place of the original’s Japanese born school nurse Makiho Caroline Amano.

Here the film rather lets itself down with it’s own lack of ambition to take the ideas further, and add imaginative layers that could have supplanted the original.

We begin to learn Saya’s history, and rather than the 19th Century past hinted at in the original, and used in the series, the live-action instead moves her past to edo period Japan. We discover her father was a great vampire hunter, but was killed by Onigen (Koyuki, The Last Samurai, Pulse, Alive), most powerful of all the demons, and hence Saya seeks revenge.

With Tokyo seeming rife with demons, it seems that increased demon activity points towards a devious plan by them, and the presence of Onigen. Saya’s chance for revenge is at hand, but at what cost?

As action films go, Blood: The Last Vampire is by no means terrible. It’s obvious that director Chris Nahon has an understanding of how to film action, and – having worked with action choreographer Corey Yuen on Kiss Of The Dragon – know when to hand over the reigns. It’s beautiful to look at, even if sometimes the CGI work is less convincing than the original. (Mind you, the original being one of those ground breaking anime’s that kept the right side of almost looking too real – well, how can you compare with that?)

It would be easy to blame it all on the tortured production. Billy Kong, producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, House Of Flying Daggers, and Lust, Caution, announced the live-action version of Blood with The Bride With White Hair director Ronny Yu attached. That didn’t work out, but ultimately Chris Chow’s (Fearless) script plays too readily into both their histories when taking the film on from its original premise.

In the flashback sequences, Blood tries hard to take you back to the films that inspired Crouching Tiger. It’s Lone Wolf and Cub and classic Shaw Brothers films wrapped in revisionist, noughties style. It’s all swords and wire-fu, wonderfully done, but you wonder, hang on, where are the demons? Later Saya’s showdown with Onigen seems too reminiscent of The Bride With White Hair. But Blood doesn’t seem to know how it’s demon vampires should look, or fight for that matter. It’s here, then over there, horror, then old school wuxia. Enjoyable, but perhaps somewhat misguided by Saya’s use of a sword. (Which in the original, by the way, breaks anyway!?)

It’s an odd mix, not helped by the fact that as a Brit – that as an international production – it relies on British actors to fill in the gaps in the cast. It can be disorientating to see Ruby In The Smoke’s JJ Field or Dog Soldiers Liam Cunnigham as Americans, but not as much as seeing UK TV stalwart Larry Lamb, last most noticeably cast in EastEnders, as a US army base general.

Casting wise, Gianna Jun is fine in the lead role, but weirdly not as feisty as you’d like her to be – all torn by her past and overly upset. (You wonder if someone like Love Exposure’s Hikari Mitsushima might have been been better?) As a character Koyuki’s Onigen just isn’t shown as evil enough – come on Chris (x 2) will you? Give us more to work with!

When Alice’s character starts spouting cod-philosophy it’s all a bit hard to take. (The purpose of the original school nurse character being a lot more poignant.) And then comes the baffling finale, which makes no sense at all other than playing up a reference to Alice’s name.

All in all Blood comes in pretty short for an action film. While I welcome an action film that runs well under 2 hours for a change, it’s all a bit telling on the production side. Indeed, the release date was put back a couple of times due to post-production not being finished in time. For all that, it’s not half bad looking (though you do wonder if the DVD could be more enlightening with deleted scenes and, possibly, abandoned or early scripts).

If you’re expecting entertainment, then Blood fulfils that and more, think Blade Trinity meets later episodes of Buffy. However, if you’re expecting an imaginative re-write of the vampire genre, seek out Park Chan-wook’s Thirst or Tomas Alfredson’s Let The Right One In…

» We spoke to both Gianna Jun and Chris Nolan exclusively earlier in the year…

…and don’t forget, you can win the DVD here!

The Fox Family

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:00:49 +0000

Kudos for the release, but this Korean black comedy musical falls, well, a bit flat. Literally…

Nowadays, when a relatively new DVD distribution label comes along I feel like I should support everything they put out there. Hell, there’s a lot going awry in the industry right now, times are tough with all you naughty downloaders out there, downloading movies, not paying for them, not going to the cinema anymore, etc.

So along come Terracotta Distribution, who already have a couple of really worthy efforts under their belt with Yim Phil-Sung’s Hansel And Gretel and Singing Chen’s God Man Dog, not to mention an annual festival, and they drop this on us…

Ah, no don’t get me wrong… By now you’ll be thinking this film is terrible, which it simply isn’t. But it’s also not – as the distributors may try to persuade us – on a par with Takeshi Miike’s Happiness Of The Katakuris or The Rocky Horror Show. Which makes this all a little tricky…

Meet the Fox Family. Outwardly a travelling circus troupe, they are in fact just that, a family of fox spirits waiting for the chance to permanently become humans – a rare opportunity that comes once every thousand years, as long as they eat a human liver that night. So the race is on to find some unwitting volunteers.

Unfortunately macabre murders left behind by a serial killer are putting the family in the limelight of a police investigation. Will they be successful in their quest to become human…?

Part fable, part musical, part black comedy, but mainly little of anything, The Fox Family is a victim of never successfully bringing these strands together. The tone is messy, but really the problem is it never truly takes itself far enough down one line or another. The fantasy elements could be made stronger, the humour is a little too juvenile, often dropping into dead end parody skits, and honestly, the songs are lame. Away from the immediate novelty of the cast breaking into song – which frankly doesn’t last long as they’re so prominently flagged up – there’s little left to stick in your brain. It lacks the baffling unpredictability of the aforementioned Happiness Of The Katakuris. (And no, the songs aren’t a patch on Katakuris’ either.)

Occasional glints shine through when the film is at it’s most abstract, like when a standoff between police and protesters turns in to a break dancing standoff. But even this only underlines the films problem, having no relevance the plot whatsoever. Which is a shame as the cast, including Ha Jung-woo (Like You Know It All), former Miss Korea, Park Si-hyeon (Marine Boy), Ju Hyeon (A Love) and Ko Ju-yeon (Epitaph, My Wife Is A Gangster), do a pretty fine job with what they have to work with. It’s well shot too, but the cinematography is definite more solid than inspiring.

So what am I trying to say? Okay film, but don’t hold this against Terracota – give the guys a chance as I’m sure they have plenty more interesting releases in store for us…

Meatball Machine

Andrew Heskins — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:00:06 +0000

Nope, it’s not the food counter at Ikea – Tetsuo meets the Power Rangers in this schlock horror from the creators of Versus, Kabuking Z: The Movie, Battlefield Baseball, Tokyo Gore Police and The Machine Girl…

On the streets of Tokyo a bizarre battle is taking place as parasitical beings take over humans turning them into biochemical weapons. Their hosts are turned into maniacal killers who attempt to destroy each other, furthering their own existence by consuming the loser alive.

In the midst of such chaos we find a love story between shy Yoki (Issei Takahashi, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Detroit Metal City) and equally bashful Sachiko (Aoba Kawai), just about to finally make a move on each other. The only trouble is those pesky parasites are about to pit them against each other. Love doesn’t get much messier then this…

Co-directors Junichi Yamamoto (Kabuking Z: The Movie) – who directed the original short that inspired Meatball Machine in 1999 – and Yudai Yamaguchi (Battlefield Baseball, co-writer of Versus) pull from a raft of references, from David Cronenburg’s Scanners and eXistenZ, to John Carpenter’s The Thing, from Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesheaters to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead – but most obvious of these is Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo. Reflecting not only the mechanical fetishism, but the use stop-motion and even, arguably, the plot – it’s just delivered in a less ‘arty’, more coherent fashion (at least for this sort of thing!)

Like Tetsuo it tugs heavily on a long history in Japan of transforming heroes, from Ultraman to (what became in the West) the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers blended with a fascination with mechanisations that goes back nearly as far. It also mirrors the repressed sexuality that was so much a part of Tetsuo – though it arguably takes the fetishism angle further, and despite the more exploitative nature of one scene in particular (which if anything reminded me of Andrzej Zulawski’s cult early 80s horror Possession for some reason), it somehow seems a lot more wholesome. However, even with the more comic book styled-action it never truly escapes Tetsuo’s shadow.

There’s plenty of stylised bloodletting on show, what with eye gouging, human cannons, saws and nasty (laughing) parasites and so on. It’s all good, low-budget, old school horror fun, and with special effects by Yoshihiro Nishimura – who went on to direct Tokyo Gore Police and supervise effects on The Machine Girl, the film can be seen as the nucleus of the new wave of Japan’s splatter-punk horrors. It’s clear the filmmakers were still learning their trade, and even by the end of the film had come a long way from the start. Even the short film made for the original DVD release, Meatball Machine: Reject Of Death (also included on this DVD release), manages to be a lot slicker in production (as well as being more racially and sexually offensive than the original).

Though likeable, the film lacks the naïve charm of the original short that inspired it – also included on the DVD – even if that has all the finesse of a Screen Test young filmmakers entry (and probably wasn’t far off being that). What it comes down to is even with the addition of an unlikely love story, there’s still not quite enough to propel the story over its 90 minute running time, it lacks the tightness of more recent splatter-punk horrors. The films rather drawn out confrontation between the two lovers eventually starts to drag – but perhaps that’s a symptom of filmmakers finding their feet, and a comparably larger budget!

Meatball Machine is an enjoyable romp for those of us brought up on those (ahem) wholesome horror movies of the 80s…

Meatball Machine is released by 4Digital Asia on Monday 6 July 2009.

Cutie Honey

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:00:36 +0000

A(nother) 21st century take on an anime fave from the past, former model Eriko Sato gets a flimsy excuse to run around in her underwear and skintight cat suit…

With the world threatened by the menace of Sister Jill and her Panther Claw gang, is there anyone who can save it? Surely not the demure office worker Honey Kisaragi? But ah, actually Kisaragi (Eriko Sato, Funuke: Show Some Love, You Losers!, Carved) is also Cutie Honey, super-powered crime fighter, able to disguise her appearance under hundreds of, well… rather familiar looking faces as it happens.

With high camp style and a ‘Cutie… Flash’, Honey dispatches the villains, as long as she’s fuelled up on junk food, but even superheroes need allies, cue No-nonsense, no-fun cop Natsuko Aki (Mikako Ichikawa, Memories Of Matsuko) and super-cool reporter Seiji (Jun Murakami), on hand to help her track down Panther Claw’s well hidden base, Jill’s tower. (Yeah, mate, maybe you should look under that Tokyo Tower thing?).

Against spider villains and foes who want to serenade Honey with J-Pop before dispatching her, can she really defeat the bad guys?

Even when Cutie Honey originally came out, the thought of taking a vintage 70s anime TV series and turning it into a live-action film wasn’t exactly new –Casshern beat it to Japanese cinemas by a matter of weeks, and the overly energetic ‘making of’ documentary on the DVD admits to it being something of a trend. However, as it’s taken five years to get released in the UK, you could give the film the benefit of with the curve, if not exactly ahead of it.

Brought to the screen by legendary anime director Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion), the film keeps true to the source material – namely what its creator Go Nagai (who also created Devilman and UFO Robot Grendizer, and makes a guest appearance) referred to as the first shōnen manga – or to put it another way a manga aimed directly at titillating adolescent boys. In that respect, with the delectable Eriko Sato cavorting around in her underwear playing with her cat (now, don’t – that’s a cheap comment and you know it) or running around in spandex, frankly the charm goes way beyond a teenage audience.

Unlike the original manga (and an anime series overseen by Anno the same year this was released) those delights are kept pretty innocent. It’s all good, clean fun, even with the suggestion that Natsuko is smitten with Cutie herself. (Ah, yes, the old lesbian hints, eh?) The situations are utterly over-the-top, Eriko’s bubbly performance completely irrepressible. (An early film in her career, it’s interesting to contrast this with her appearance in Funuke. Though both characters are in their own ways oblivious to the real world, the complexities Eriko is now able to bring to the roles she plays are obvious.)

Easily more Powderpuff Girls than The Dark Knight, there’s more than a hint of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to Cutie Honey. Indeed, perhaps deliberately the film seems a little cheap. Despite some inspired fight sequences which Anno makes look exactly like manga (the bits where they so that freeze frame where the background moves), he doesn’t seem to know how to shoot the real world. It’s often a little flat when it could be more saturated.

And though there are plenty of wacky characters involved, often the humour can’t quite find a level to pitch itself at, never quite making the Austin Powers yeah baby spoof it seems to be heading towards. The conclusion seems straight out of Neon Genesis, all meaningful and poetic – I mean hello, where did that come from?

Yeah, this is enjoyable, but not quite the spectacle – whether in action or comedy – that it needs to be to lift it above the many other recent manga/amine adaptations…

Monkey Magic

Andrew Heskins — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:00:12 +0000

The funkiest Monkey is back, in a whole new adventure with Tripitaka, Pigsy and Sandy…

Whilst on their quest to India, Buddhist monk Tripitaka (Eri Fukatsu) and his three protective disciples, Monkey (Shingo Katori), Pigsy (Atsushi Ito, Blood and Bones) and Sandy (Teruyoshi Uchimura), encounter a young princess Reimi (Tabe Minako). She convinces the help save her Tiger Kingdom from the absolute power of the brother demons King Gold Horn and Silver Horn. But all is not as it seems…

The enduring popularity of the Nippon TV series of the 1970s, Saiyūki, known as Monkey in the West, seems in little danger of dying out – despite not being on terrestrial screens for nearly 30 years! Somehow this good natured take on Wu Cheng’en’s classic Chinese novel Journey To The West still coverts new fans year-upon-year, and this new take on Saiyūki began as a Japanese TV series itself in 2006.

Essentially a reboot of the original 70s series, rather than a new look at the original novel, Monkey Magic captures much of the original spirit of the series. If most of the characters have remodelled for the noughties, including a blonde Monkey (not unlike the later appearance of Jet Li in The Forbidden Kingdom), then Eri Fukatsu as Tripitaka is the spit of the actress who played her originally. The series even included an appearance from the original Monkey, Masaaki Sakai.

Rather than produce a second season, however, the makers decided to take the new show to the big screen, and herein lies the problem with this film – keeping true to the lovable budget nature, but also creating a story worthy enough of a cinematic treatment. However hard it tries, it can’t help but come off like an over-extended episode, definitely not worthy of its close to two hour running time. Though the film often looks good, it can’t seem to escape it’s television origins, and that probably isn’t helped by the fact that director Kensaku Sawada’s experience has been entirely based in TV.

Monkey is his old self, as mischievous as ever with his over-blown ego, but even if he always was the lead, here the characters of Sandy and Pigsy are marginalised to little more few lines of dialogue. Indeed, it’s not a case of the actors not being as engaging as the original cast, though that’s true of Shingo as Monkey, neither Atsushi nor Teruyoshi really get the chance.

Instead, plenty of screen time is given to the character of Rin Rin (Asami Mizukawa, Dark Water), a pesky thief character invented for the new series (which will no doubt throw viewers who haven’t seen it first, as the character is given no introduction!) Indeed, hardcore fans of the original series may be irritated by what few changes have been made. (For instance, there’s no Yu Lung, the dragon that disguised itself as Tripitaka’s horse.)

At least there’s a version of the original end theme Ghandara over the end credits, even if it’s a somewhat bland karaoke arrangement. Played by the appropriately-named Monkey Majik, this Canadian-born, Japanese-based band actually did a version of Monkey Magic itself, but we can be glad it wasn’t included! (Think Maroon 5 or Orson without the, ahem, attitude… another example of what we discussed a few weeks ago when we looked back at Godiego’s original soundtrack!)

Monkey Magic is a likable continuation of the series that should appeal to fans, as it pretty well captures the attitude of the original series, but with somewaht better special effects. Let’s hope distributor Cine Asia brings over the 2006 series as well…?

20th Century Boys

Andrew Heskins — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:00:36 +0000

Get ready for the next phenomenon as Nakoi Urasawa’s hit manga finally hits our screens as a live-action trilogy…

I know what you’re thinking, another multi-part manga adaption, can it really keep audiences interested in one movie, let alone three? Well, if the first part is anything to go by, then yes, it actually might…

It’s the late 1990s, and general loser Kenji Endo (Toshiaki Karasawa, Cassern) works in his mother’s convenience store, caring for his sisters baby girl, his dreams of being a rock star are long behind him. But at a school reunion he soon finds he has a far greater connection to a mysterious cult and strange deaths around the world, an icon he and his childhood friends came up with.

As the mystery deepens, it all seems to relate back to a story they came up with as children, the ‘book of prophecies’, which foretold devastating events in Tokyo and around the world, and the destruction of mankind at the eve of the new millennium. But just who from their tight-knit group could be trying to make it come true? And without the book itself, just how can Kenji and his friends stop it from happening?

Director Yukihiko Tsutsumi (Sushi King Goes To New York, Happily Ever After, Keizoku: The Movie) approaches Nakoi Urasawa’s immense 24-volume best-selling manga with the respect it deserves. Tsutsumi follows much of the original narrative, spanning five decades and several continents, looping back and forth on itself in flashback – he was said to have demanded a budget of 6 billion yen, an unheard of amount in the Japanese film industry.

With engaging performances from Toshiaki and the rest of the cast, director Yukihiko quickly pulls you into a plot that unfolds from such an inconspicuous start, but eventually pits our humble heroes against giant mechanized robots and deadly viruses. There’s great support from Etsushi Toyokawa as Occho, Kenji’s best friend – hardly seen in this episode, one expects him to play a much greater role in subsequent parts.

The mix of fondly remembered childhood and an increasingly dark, and bizarre present make a spellbinding mix. It’s reminiscent of some of Stephen King’s work, particularly It, where ghosts of the past come back to haunt adults – even if in 2oth Century Boys those ghosts are somewhat more innocuous. It only makes the journey, from the mundane everyday to science fiction, somewhat more believable.

Sure, there are plenty of questions left unanswered, but what do you expect for a proposed trilogy? This feels very much like a film in it’s own right. And if some of the recent ‘multi-parters’ have seemed a rather cynical move to gain repeat audiences, often lacking the content to pull a single decent movie, 20th Century Boys seems to have it in spades. It’ll be interesting to see if the series can keep the pace over the next parts, or if it quickly runs out of steam.

20th Century Boys (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£19.99) by 4Digital Asia on 4th May 2009.

And we have three special prize givaways of a DVD, t-shirt and poster – click here to enter!

Yo-yo Girl Cop

Andrew Heskins — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:00:30 +0000

An enjoyable live action Manga from director Kenta Fukasaku that enters similar territory to Battle Royale, but let’s see some more yo-yo action next time…

‘K’ (J-pop star Aya Matsuura) is a fiery, martial art trained teenager who makes a deal with the Tokyo Police to free her mother – currently held under serious criminal charges by the US authorities. That deal involves becoming an undercover agent at the Seisen Academy, the origin of an underground website aimed at disaffected and suicidal students called Enola Gay, which has just started an ominous timer counting down.

Disguised as a high school transfer student called Asamiya Saki, she has only 72 hours to find out who’s behind the Enola Gay website, but she’s going to have to handle the school bullies first…

With its near hysterical, hormone ridden students driving all emotions well out of proportion, and Heathers/Mean Girls like dominance of girl bullies who dominate what’s (or who’s) cool and who’s not in school, Kenta Fukasaku returns to the hyper amplified high school world of Battle Royale. (Though it must be said this is a distinct improvement over his sequel, Battle Royale 2.)

Of course for British viewers recent events in Bridgend, Wales, potentially make the story come across as somewhat insensitive – seeming to make light of their self-harming and suicidal tendencies, without the cleverness of Kenta’s original script for Battle Royale – yet considering the source material you can hardly fault it for the film for comic book simplification?

Instead it’s all actresses who are quite obviously older than the age they are playing, running around dressed as school girls, which is always going to find an audeince. Yet for all its flaws its a likeable reboot of the Sukeban Deka (Deliquent Girl Cop) manga character from the 70s, the object of three live action TV series, an OVA and two live action movies. A previous Asamiya, Yuki Saito, even makes a cameo appearance as her mother.

Yet throughout Suki herself seems a little bit useless. Having proved her abilities against the US authorities, she seems unable to handle her schoolmates, spending much of the film recovering from one knock on the head or another. She only comes into her own in the finale, which itself is short-lived, and despite the involvement of World Yo-yo Champion Takahiko Hasegawa, you wish there was a lot more yo-yo action. (The mind overflows with the sort of trick shots that could be played – well, mine does anyway – but sadly the film doesn’t really deliver.)

The cast comes off well, with Riki Takeuchi (Dead Or Alive, Battle Royale II: Requiem) giving an enjoyable performance as Suki’s main contact Kazutoshi Kira, a man who has more of a connection to her than she realises. Overall, it’s an enjoyable yarn if nothing particularly special.

The DVD of Yo-Yo Girl Cop will be released in the UK on Monday 22 September by 4Digital Asia.

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