By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Kazuaki Kiriya
Starring: Akira Terao | Kumiko Aso | Yusuke Iseya
Country: japan
Year: 2004
Running time: 141
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405821/combined
Tom says: “Before I start, check out the trailer at http://www.apple.com/jp/quicktime/trailers/casshern_large and make sure you’re wearing depends, because you will wet your pants.
“Because I’ve seen HERO, I can’t call CASSHERN the most visually stunning movie I’ve ever seen. Luckily, the two movies are as different as night and day, so I can find some sort of loophole. So, because of some yet-to-be-determined loophole, CASSHERN is the most visually stunning movie I’ve ever seen!
“CASSHERN, possibly Kazuaki Kiriya’s debut film (I say possibly because the imdb is usually pretty incomplete when it comes to Japanese movies), is a live-action remake of a 1970’s anime of the same name. There’s a clever little scene in the film where the cheesy helmet that the character wears in the original is smashed in his debut as a hero.
“The movie starts with Tetsuya’s father announcing that he’s discovered a way to create cells that heal into full organs that can be harvested to a meeting of the leading council. The elder members of the council are understandably excitable, but the younger members are skeptical, and in a few instances outraged. The meeting ends with the military offering to help the doctor with his research, and although he is reluctant, he agrees, since his driving force is his research can save his wife.
“Against his father’s wishes, Tetsuya goes to war, and in many flashbacks later in the movie, we find that he has been involved in atrocities. A year later, he is killed in action. On the day his son’s body is returned, the doctor’s experiment, previously a failure, takes a turn. An unexplained phenomena occurs that brings the pieces of human he is working on to life. (I’m unsure if they are a Frankenstein mismatch of parts or the pieces grow separate but fully). The military takes over and begins slaughtering the people brought back to life (unless the human parts were merely clones. Once again, I’m unsure here). Four escape the massacre and discover they have superhuman abilities, they kidnap the doctor’s wife, find an abandoned robot factory outside the city (along with snazzy clothes), rename themselves Neo-humans and swear revenge on all humanity.
“Meanwhile, the doctor finds his son’s body and in his grief brings it to the laboratory to be reborn. A fellow scientist (and father to Tetsuya’s fiance) takes him to his laboratory and outfits him in a prototype battlesuit, because Tetsuya has so much power he could tear himself apart. The Neo-humans decide to kidnap scientists, awaken Tetsuya and all hell breaks lose. One of the best action scenes follow as Tetsuya takes on hundreds of menacing robot soldiers. And that’s only the first hour of the movie.
“CASSHERN is a wonder to watch. Borrowing visual elements from anime, Soviet propaganda and fantasy artwork, it’s unlike any movie I’ve ever seen. Aside from the robot battle mentioned above, a standout scene is after Tetsuya rescues his fiance and escapes the city, two scenes depict the same exchange. One an idealized love scene with them embracing each other in hyper-real colors, the other with them shouting and covered in mud in gritty, static-laden greyscale, both scenes interchanging.
“The storyline has a few holes, but the ending, which doesn’t end in the showdown one would expect from such an intense action movie, and the hyper-realistic style of the movie made me forgive any flaws.
“The DVD was just released in Japan last Friday. It came with two extra discs, one with trailers and a making of featurette, the other with design and cg effect samples. As with most Japanese DVDs, the packaging is above-and-beyond what is necessary. HMV Japan also shipped me a poster and a Casshern Kubrick figure out of what I suspect to be pure kindness.
“CASSHERN will be on my top 25 foreign films list. I only pray that I will be able to see it on a big screen.”