Casshern: Director's Cut
by Kazuaki Kiriya
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Akira Terao, Fumiyo Kohinata, Kanako Higuchi, Kumiko Aso, Yusuke IseyaDirector: Kazuaki Kiriya
Brand: Paramount
Writer: Kazuaki Kiriya
Producer: Chiaki Noji
Producer: Hideji Miyajima
Producer: Makoto Tanaka
Writer: Dai Sato
Writer: Shotaro Suga
Writer: Tatsuo Yoshida
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Japanese (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 117 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-10-16
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Casshern: Director's Cut
Movie Review: Stunning effects, but little else.
Summary: 3 Stars
Casshern (Kazuaki Kiriya, 2004)
Ever since it came out, I'd been hearing a great deal about Casshern, supposedly the movie that was going to revolutionize Japanese science fiction, with groundbreaking effects and... all that stuff. Yeah, we've heard it before, and it never quite seems to work out that way. For some reason, while the Japanese seem capable of outstripping us in every other genre of film, for such a technologically advanced society, they're oddly incapable of making great science fiction.
Casshern (Blindness' Yusuke Iseya) was once just a normal guy named Tetsuya Azuma. No more. However; now he's an indestructible superhero, created by his father (Lost Paradise's Akira Terao) in order to stop the Shinzo Ningen ("neo-humans"), who were also created by Casshern's father from a mutation in the same process that created Casshern.
The movie is based on a 1973 anime, and that was based on a manga serialized in Terebi. While there have certainly been great films based on manga over the years, the very structure of manga, which is almost always serialized, tends to lead to an episodic feel, and in many cases a repetitive one. Such is the case here; fight scene, emote, fight scene, emote, fight scene, emote... you get the idea. Now, with all that's been said about the effects< I should mention that they are, in fact, top-notch. Problem is, unlike most of the things that distinguish Japanese films from Americans, we're pretty used to top-notch special effects, even in terrible movies (ever see Spielberg's War of the Worlds?). It's not enough to differentiate this from the pack. It's not bad, but in the end, it's nothing special, either. ***
Summary of Casshern: Director's Cut
After 50 years of bitter warfare in the late 21st century, a new crisis looms. A threat to the future and the overall existence of mankind. But, there is hope a savior will emerge. Casshern. Casshern is an action-packed, sci-fi thriller that blends Japanamation and manga-inspired live action to create a new hybrid form of filmmaking that is both visually stunning and thought provoking.Kiriya Kazuaki's spectacular Casshern is an impressive marriage of live action drama and animated effects that, taken together, look like something both very old and very new in cinema. A wild, science fiction tale with an echo or two of Bladerunner, Casshern is set in a dystopian future following a 50-year-long war between Europe and Asia. The latter wins, calling the resulting Eurasia the "Eastern Federation," but the high-tech weapons used in the battle have affected the whole of mankind through widespread devastation and illness. A geneticist whose son, Tetsuya (Yusuke Iseya), has gone off to fight terrorists, promises the military his work on "neo cells" will result in the cultivation of spare human parts for the wounded and afflicted. But two unexpected results occur: a small band of superhuman mutants rise up out of the scientist's chemical muck, and Tetsuya--killed in battle--is brought back to life with his own superpowers. While the mutants rise up against the human race, Tetsuya, now known as "Casshern," takes them on against a fascinating psychological backdrop with Oedipal overtones. The film's look of hyperreal, pop culture pastiche (in which action often evokes the look of 1930s movie serials blended with a whirl of dreamy, free-associating images) is reaching for the same thing as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. But it is much grander in its effort. --Tom Keogh
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