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Fukurô no shiro (1999)
Quite subliminally gorgeous Japanese period piece
Underrated and often unappreciated, but a hidden gem of recent Japanese cinema, starring the inimitable Kiichi Nakai - with a grasp for comedy and hamming up some moments; acting sublimely at others.
Patience and a better understanding of the period concerned (about to crossover from Nobunaga Oda into the Tokugawa/Edo period in the late 16th Century, when Japan was on the cusp of civil war) also go far.
While some of the background effects are not particularly convincing (the early attack on Iga, for instance, and the decapitated head that spits across the screen), most of the sets are appropriate backdrops for some often inspired dialogue and innuendos.
Musically, too, the movie rings true, opting for traditional instrumentation rather than the J-Pop sounds that have hallmarked a lot of other Japanese period pieces.
Andrez Bergen
Dororo (2007)
'Dororo' a tale of lost opportunity (and body parts)
'Dororo' a tale of lost opportunity (and body parts).
By Andrez Bergen (Daily Yomiuri/de-VICE).
Directed by Akihiko Shiota. Cast: Ko Shibasaki, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Kiichi Nakai, Mieko Harada, Kumiko Aso.
There are so many reasons why Dororo, touted by Toho as a supernatural samurai action flick, ought to succeed in such a cross-genre context.
One: Its fight sequences are supervised by Ching Siu-tung - the man who choreographed the giddy brawls in Zhang Yimou's martial art romps House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Hero (2002), and previously directed the hilarious Jet Lee/Takeshi Kaneshiro action spoof, Dr. Wai and the Scripture Without Words (1996).
Next: There's the pivotal acting triumvirate of Ko Shibasaki, who was a revelation as the ruthless Mitsuko in Batoru Rowaiaru (aka Battle Royale, 2000), along with Satoshi Tsumabuki (Waterboys), and Kiichi Nakai.
Nakai was as eloquently dramatic in Mibu Gishi Den (When the Last Sword is Drawn, 2003) as he was effortlessly funny in the "Samurai Cellular" segment of filmic anthology Yo nimo Kimyo na Monogatari: Eiga no Tokubetsuhen (Tales of the Unusual, 2000).
Lastly, the story: originally a manga series penned in the late '60s by the late Osamu Tezuka - he who also created the legendary Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy) and Janguru Taitei (Kimba the White Lion).
Yet, in spite of all these positives, director Akihiko Shiota conspires to produce a live-action movie lacking in ingredients essential for any genre: a decent plot, solid acting, or believable special effects.
For starters, Shibasaki is just too old (at 25) to kid around playing the wild, street-smart child thief of the title, and Tsumabuki lacks the charismatic stamina to retain the focus as the film's lead.
Nakai, our hero's misguided father, summons up a surprisingly lackluster performance; he's merely nonplussed even about having five arrows stuck in his back while conjuring up a host of evil demons.
These actors, along with the criminally underused Mieko Harada (an Akira Kurosawa veteran), suffer at the hands of Shiota, who previously helmed irresolute outings like Kanaria (2005) and Yomigaeri (2002).
More pertinently, Tezuka's original source material borders upon the macabre, which in this context undermines what really aspires to be a light-hearted buddy movie.
Perhaps the scribe's expert knowledge as the holder of a medical degree accounts for this uncomfortable focus, and the way in which the yarn offers a strenuous nod in the direction of Frankenstein's monster.
It goes like this: Hyakkimaru (Tsumabuki) is born without 48 body parts, because they were filched from him in a prenatal deal initialed by his samurai dad (Nakai) with those aforementioned demons.
The baby, which brings to mind Eraserhead, is lobbed into a casket and launched down a river, all Moses-like, then chances to be rescued by an alchemist who has the ability to fashion replacement parts - just so Hyakkimaru can head out, team up with the boisterous Dororo (Shibasaki), slay the demons, and retrieve his real bits and pieces.
Different scenes suggest a diverse array of influences. One tavern scene looks like it came straight from Conan the Barbarian, while some talking rats seem to be accessories from The Goodies.
It's all too clear that Shiota - like Tezuka before him - isn't quite sure whether to pursue the supernatural, the bawdy, a good laugh, or full-on action - and instead confuses the whole caboodle.
The movie opens today. (Jan. 27, 2007)
Cars (2006)
Pixar's "Cars" stalls mid-race...
Pixar's "Cars" stalls mid-race...
By Andrez Bergen @ de-VICE / Daily Yomiuri (Japan).
Ever since Steve Jobs rather presciently snapped up the former computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, Ltd., for a measly $10 million back in '86, Pixar has accelerated its winning streak in Hollywood animation stakes, against inconsistent competitors like DreamWorks.
Last year was the studio's most profitable to date, raking in 15 times Jobs' original investment - mostly on the back of The Incredibles (2004) and Finding Nemo (2003). This January, Pixar also scored the keys to the Magic Kingdom, via its merger with Disney.
It's been a mesmerizing ride.
Throughout its 20-year jaunt, through earlier hits like Toy Story (1995) and Monsters, Inc. (2001), Pixar's strength has been not just its uber-progressive eye for CG detailing, but the team's sense of humor and flexibility with its intended target-audiences - an animated sortie by Pixar can appeal equally to preschool whipper-snappers and grouchy retirees' laugh quotas.
The versatility of the studio's subject-matter over the years has also been enviable, Pixar proving itself as adept at lampooning cultural icons as it has been at unfurling cool characters for kids' lunchboxes.
On first impressions, with Pixar's founding father, John Lasseter, back in the driver's seat after a seven-year directorial hiatus, Cars has all the essential ingredients to create another sure-fire winner - checkered flag, lunchbox and all.
But scrape beneath its waxed and polished exterior, and you may walk away a tad disappointed.
Let's start with the plot premise: Churlish, high-octane motor-racing rookie Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) sets the track afire and is all set to take the national championship before an accidental detour off Route 66 sets him in the slow-lane in a sleepy little hick town called Radiator Springs.
There he realizes the error of his ways and becomes best buddies with a multicultural cross-section of motor vehicles bearing engines of gold; he also gets the chance to fall in love with someone aside from himself, and saves said town from obscurity.
All in all, it's a bit like Toy Story on wheels, filtered through a homogenized host of celluloid predecessors including City Slickers, U-Turn and Petticoat Junction.
While at times quirky, mostly this yarn borders on pedestrian. Chances are it's all the backseat drivers involved - Lasseter may have written and directed with Joe Ranft (who was tragically, if ironically, killed last year in an automobile accident), but there was scripting input from at least nine other people.
The cast also struggles to turn over. Cars plunks 81-year-old veteran actor Paul Newman alongside the more comic-inclined Wilson, Michael Keaton, Cheech Marin, and Pixar regular John Ratzenberger (Hamm the Piggy Bank in Toy Story).
Ratzenberger is side-tracked (as Mack, the transport truck) until the final credits, Marin fills out a tired Latino stereotype, Keaton isn't allowed driving time to develop his surly take on McQueen's chief racing rival, and Wilson is unusually flat as the stockcar infant terrible.
It's left to Newman to save the (spoken-word) day, but even his gravely intonations - as Doc Hudson, the 1951 Hudson Hornet M.D. with a mysterious, racy past - aren't quite up to the Herculean task here.
Lasseter has confirmed that the character name of Lightning McQueen is in part a homage to the late, great Steve McQueen, the actor who pushed the driving envelope in movies like Bullitt and Le Mans; Newman himself has been a renowned car racing nut for years on end. Classic Pixar would've tweaked this angle for more than it was worth, yet all we get here is Lightning McQueen's racing number - 95 - which is a mundane reference to the year Toy Story was released.
There are some genuinely funny sequences here, like the tractor-tipping, the closing-credits Ratzenberger rant, and the flying bugs which are, yes, VW Beetles. But these moments are fleeting and spaced far apart.
Most surprising is the lack of depth in the personas - particularly since Pixar usually renders insightful character designs and personalities. This may be just animation, but coloring between the lines is essential.
Luigi, the 1959 Fiat 500, and Fillmore, the 1960 Volkswagen Kombi van, offer cute asides, but visualizing central character Sally (voiced by Bonnie Hunt) as a 2002 Porsche 911 is a bland choice for the love interest. Wouldn't a 1969 VW Karmann Ghia or a 1960 Volvo P1800S Sports qualify as far more sexy options, if we're going to get all auto-erotic? For a studio following up on its two most internationally successful films, in its 20th anniversary year, Cars is Pixar's least satisfying outing.
Unless you reside in the heartland of the American Midwest, twiddle with V8 engines, listen to country music, smash the odd mailbox, vote for George W., have secret hankerings for reruns of The Beverley Hillbillies, or adore NASCAR racing - as Lasseter does - your attention span may start sputtering before you've completed the first lap.
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005)
'Dreamer' hurdles the schmaltz
'DREAMER' HURDLES THE SCHMALTZ.
By Andrez Bergen (de-VICE / The Daily Yomiuri).
Director: John Gatins. Cast: Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Elisabeth Shue, Kris Kristofferson, Luis Guzman, David Morse.
I never quite understood America's fixation on equine cinematography. Recent outings like Hidalgo and Seabiscuit are the tip of the steed's whiskers - Hollywood history is littered with a whole host of horse movies like National Velvet, The Black Stallion, Horse Feathers, My Friend Flicka, Mr. Ed, Francis the Talking Mule, and The Lone Ranger (remember his four-legged sidekick Silver?).
Okay, okay - Francis the mule was only half a horse. But the point is that Americans do love their stallions; maybe it has to do with that idealized cowboy tradition the Wild West (and its lesser brethren, the Midwest) is famous for.
So the new Kurt Russell and Dakota Fanning saddle-up, Dreamer, has a lot to live up to, and a whole heap of horse movie clichés to live down. And there are some worrying facts behind this movie.
Kurt Russell hasn't acted in anything particularly riveting since the Disney comedies he made as a kid in the '60s - and even they've been put out to pasture. Remember The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, anyone? Meanwhile, 12-year-old Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds) is better known these days as she of the terrific screams, but the not-so-pitch-perfect movie choices.
And writer-director John Gatins? He's responsible for last year's lackluster Samuel L. Jackson vehicle Coach Carter, and has donkeyed around as a bit-part actor in a string of disastrous sequels to equally inane horror movies, like Leprechaun 3 and Pumpkinhead II.
Last, but certainly not least, Dreamer boldly declares that it's "inspired by a true story." Ye gods.
In fact, this tale relies on a bevy of sporting-saga formulas, familiar to anyone who's watched National Velvet or The Natural.
A racehorse called Sonador is rescued from lethal injection when she breaks her leg in the opening minutes; thereafter it's an against-all-odds, come-from-behind romp that's full of high-drama, redemption, disaster, a reconciled family, and pretty shots of ponies hoofing it.
There's even a Darth Vader-like villain represented by cold corporate type David Morse, and a duo of bickering Arabs - though in this case Hollywood has cast them as rich princes rather than crazed terrorists.
The dialogue? At times appalling.
People here say things like, "It's in her blood," or, "They're men - they've got names." Who writes this manure, anyway? Couldn't they at least put new spin on the tired old clichés characters in mainstream American movies always seem to utter? And yet - and yet.
Somehow, in spite of that manure, and the odds against both cast and crew, they connive here to pull it off. In spades.
Russell smolders as Ben Crane (the jaded trainer who saves the racehorse from being put down) and Fanning is perfect as his idealistic, introverted daughter, Cale - who adopts the filly and in the process resurrects the family's faith and fortunes.
Excellent support comes from Elisabeth Shue, as Ben's wife Lily, and Kris Kristofferson, as Ben's pop - his best performance since he headed up Alan Rudolph's Trouble In Mind an eternity ago.
From the start it's a cinch that the fractured family will nurse Sonador (and themselves) back to health, overcoming the mandatory obstacles and the evil fiends responsible for putting both mare and family in dire straits in the first place. It's also obvious how it will end.
Yet Dreamer, this feel-good family drama that'll never break any box office records (and never intends to) exudes a simple, old-fashioned charm that's completely disarming, even to this cynical ol' writer who - shock, horror - was right there with them all at the finishing line.
And I never thought I'd say that about a horse movie. Go figure.
Poseidon (2006)
Poseidon: that sinking feeling...
VOYAGE OF THE BLAND: 'POSEIDON' ROLLS AGAIN.
By Andrez Bergen (de-VICE / The Daily Yomiuri).
Director: Wolfgang Petersen. Cast: Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum, Richard Dreyfuss, Jacinda Barrett, Jimmy Bennett.
If you're going to rebake a disaster movie of such epic schlock-chic value as The Poseidon Adventure, you'd better put together a mighty fine recipe.
From the histrionics of Shelley Winters and the ham-fisted, macho posturing of Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine to the (literal) depth-charge of disco just past the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, the 34-year-old yarn had it all.
Along with Irwin Allen's next production, The Towering Inferno, it kick-started a '70s genre of faded-star catastrophe movies like Earthquake, Meteor and Airport '75.
When the "Master of Disaster" died in 1991 of natural causes, it looked like the calamity flick had passed away with Allen. But The Day After Tomorrow changed all that two years ago.
Which brings us to this retelling of the upended ship saga.
Again an official Irwin Allen production, Poseidon has been relaunched (with a streamlined moniker) by Allen's surviving spouse Sheila, who incidentally appeared in a supporting role in the original movie.
This remodeled vessel boasts a completely different passenger list. Josh Lucas, fresh from Stealth, stars alongside Emmy Rossum (Phantom of the Opera) and Kurt Russell.
Russell last featured in an Irwin Allen production 40 years ago, in an episode of Lost In Space.
At the helm is German director Wolfgang Petersen. While his tendency in Hollywood has been the production of leaden projects like The Perfect Storm--another big wave saga--and Troy, this is still the man who directed the excellent, suspenseful U-boat drama Das Boot twenty-odd years ago.
Poseidon evinces a partial resurgence in his directorial stride. Under Petersen's control the movie is mostly tight, and at times visually mesmerizing.
For those of you who've somehow missed the multiple TV reruns of The Poseidon Adventure over the past three decades, the plot of that, and its remake, goes something like this: It's New Year's Eve out there in the big blue yonder. An ocean liner called the Poseidon is carrying hundreds of wealthy passengers on a cruise most people in the audience will never be able to afford, when a rogue wave chugs out of nowhere and turns everything upside down.
The remainder of the story seems to have something to do with Darwin and the endurance of the fittest, as the survivors attempt to escape a pleasure cruiser that's turned immense, partially floating coffin.
In the new version, former firefighter Robert Ramsey (Russell), his daughter Jennifer (Rossum) and her fiancé team up with hard-nosed gambler Dylan Johns (Lucas), an annoying suicidal gay pensioner (Richard Dreyfuss), a single mother with her geeky son, an alcoholic card shark named "Lucky" and a Catholic stowaway with claustrophobia.
Some of these people, of course, have "doomed to die" tattooed across their foreheads from the outset.
But who really cares? The acting itself borders on the bland--Russell is workmanlike yet distracted, Lucas can't decide if he's earnest or arrogant, and Rossum fades into the upside down interior fixtures.
Petersen has to bear some responsibility for this lackadaisical effort.
Most of the blame rests with scriptwriter Mark Protosevich, whose interpretation of the Paul Gallico novel renders the characters half-baked. He's also completely blind to all the potential elements--dramatic as well as witty--that this topsy-turvy setting could have engendered.
And let's give it a break with the bodies.
We know a lot of people are dead. We've seen their demise quite graphically over the course of events, so why persist with dozens of corpses in various states of decay? If realism is claimed, then why don't we just throw Protosevich's whole take on the story out of the port-hole, revive the actors, wring-out a decent script, and start again? Please?
Angel-A (2005)
Luc Besson's 'Angel-A' fails to take off
LUC BESSON'S "ANGEL-A" FAILS TO TAKE OFF.
By Andrez Bergen / de-VICE.
Director: Luc Besson. Cast: Jamel Debbouze, Rie Rasmussen, Gilbert Melki, Serge Riaboukine.
According to the movie reference Web site IMDb.com, French film maker Luc Besson has been involved in the production of 27 different TV and cinema titles over the last 12 months.
His job descriptions vary - think producer, executive producer, associate producer, co-producer, extra-special-producer, and what not - but I think you get the gist.
It's likely that 90 percent of these flicks you'll never hear about, while the other 10 percent you'll wish you hadn't.
By contrast, in 1997 Besson produced just one film: Gary Oldman's exceptional (if harrowing) Nil By Mouth.
That year also boasted Besson's final successful directorial vehicle, The Fifth Element. It was cheeky, irreverent, and a rollicking roller-coaster ride.
The subliminal delusions of Bessonian grandeur - vaguely evident as much there as in his earlier movies like Leon (The Professional, 1994), Nikita (1990), and Subway (1985) - didn't explode into full force until he lobbed Jeanne d'Arc (Joan Of Arc) into the cinematic fray seven years ago. That film bombed, and he hasn't directed anything since.
Until now, that is.
All of which augurs ill, and conspires to paint a gloomy picture of what to expect from Angel-A, a flight of fancy filmed in black-and-white, in Besson's native language, around the picturesque tourist locales of Paris.
In fact, Paris should be listed in the credits as an integral member of the cast, or the film retitled The Bridges of Paris County. There are literally dozens of frames of famous Parisian bridges by longtime Besson collaborator Thierry Arbogast.
He may have shot classics back in the day like L'Appartement (The Apartment, 1996) for Gilles Mimouni - but more recently he helmed the camera on screen "gems" like Catwoman and Wing Commander. Yawn.
It's on a bridge that this particular story - Besson himself calls it a romantic comedy - unfurls.
Minor-league swindler Andre, who happens to owe money to every crook at every level in the Parisian criminal pecking order, is at the end of his tether - so he decides to skip repayment plans by doing le grand jump off a bridge.
In that moment Angela miraculously appears, bearing the same suicidal inclinations. Both somehow survive the waters of the Seine, an event as unlikely as their subsequent team-up, and Angela repairs the tatters of Andre's life - aided only by a limitless supply of self-lighting cigarettes, and a nod or two toward God.
Comedian Jamel Debbouze, who plays Andre, lacks the charisma and acting repertoire to hold down the central male role here; the supporting character he played in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie, as the grocer's assistant, may have had shorter screen time but was a lot more memorable.
The fact that the guy bears a spitting-image resemblance to American character actor Luis Guzman (Carlito's Way, Traffic) may be beside the point, but it's downright disturbing.
Rie Rasmussen, a Danish former model and short-film maker herself, better fulfills Besson's need for tall, gangly, tough-but-drop-dead-gorgeous girls, and stands literally head and shoulders above Debbouze.
She gives the character what seems her best shot, yet Angela remains disconcertingly underdeveloped. It's also obvious that Arbogast and his director are more concerned with their voyeuristic camera-play.
Besson does grant tantalizing moments that entertain aside from the mandatory glimpses of lithe, sexy legs - like Andre being dangled off the Eiffel Tower, and the twist on the club scene where he thinks he's inadvertently acting out the role of Angela's pimp - and the story actually borders on poignant for just a few seconds.
The rest of the time the pedestrian acting, the languid script, some clunky angel symbolism, an awkward sense of humor - and quite possibly Besson's long-absent directorial presence - deflates the movie's monochrome sail, and it's just plain dead in the water.
The Producers (2005)
A gay old time for 'The Producers'
A gay old time for 'The Producers'
By Andrez Bergen / de-VICE
Director: Susan Stroman Cast: Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Uma Thurman, Gary Beach, Will Farrell
Arguably Mel Brooks' most rib-tickling movie, the 1968 production of 'The Producers' showcased Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel at their comedic best. Then it lay dormant in the vault, before being dusted off in the form of a Broadway show at the beginning of this decade with a few bonus song-and-dance numbers penned by Brooks.
In the polished renewal, Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane filled the formidable boots of Wilder's Leo Bloom and Mostel's Max Bialystock and, according to most reports, their shoe sizes were compatible. Lane in fact won a Tony award.
This movie, based in turn on the Broadway rejig, reveals just how much the whole shebang relies on the '68 original. Everything is the same. Well, almost - aside from the tunes and one or two plot changes.
It's 1960s New York. Max, a failed theatrical producer who's lost his musical shtick as the architect of a string of Broadway flops, crosses paths with the meek, anxiety-ridden accountant Leo--who just happens to conjure up an ingenious plan for raking in millions of bucks on the back of a bona fide Broadway bomb.
First they have to raise the funds from Max's aged female financial backers, to whom Max acts out the role of toy boy, offering to sell the old dears a stairway to the stars with half the steps missing.
Step two? Locating the worst play ever written: 'Springtime For Hitler', penned by German helmet aficionado Franz Liebkind, whose lasting memory of the Fuhrer is that he was "a good dancer." Add to this an egocentrically self-preoccupied director and an utterly incompetent cast, and all that's left for Max and Leo to collect are their plane tickets to Rio. Or so the plan goes...
While Broderick's interpretation of Leo is occasionally (high) pitch-perfect, he isn't up to the persona that Gene Wilder so effectively nurtured 28 years ago. By contrast, Lane genuinely excels as Max, the double-dealing slimeball impresario with a heart buried somewhere deep beneath his hefty production money belt.
It's a similar story with the rest of the cast. Uma Thurman positively smolders in the role of the sexy Swedish blonde bombshell Ulla, but Will Farrell - who strangely was nominated for a Golden Globe for this performance - fumbles his take on playwright Liebkind, a part that equally off-the-wall comedian Kenneth Mars had down pat back in 1968.
And absent here is one of the more hilarious characters from the earlier celluloid production - that of Dick Shawn's flower-tossing Lorenzo St. DuBois, known as just plain "L.S.D." to his friends, who took on the stage role of Adolf Hitler and rendered him a hip-jive flower child with a swastika armband.
This time around the honor of goose-stepping the boards for Germany goes to cross-dressing director Roger DeBris--played by actor Gary Beach, who also camped it up in TV series like 'Queer As Folk' and 'Will & Grace'.
Gay, it seems, has replaced flower-power in the mind of Mel Brooks some three decades after he originally wrote and directed the yarn, this time with emphasis on the characters of DeBris and his catty, posturing partner, Carmen Ghia (Roger Bart), along with supporting players modeled on the Village People.
Brooks' script is loaded with other high school-level sexual innuendo, vulgarity, occasionally offensive racial stereotypes, ageism and anything else he wants to bludgeon with a blunt instrument - all delivered with such banal exuberance and gusto it somehow works.
Great for a bit of toe-tapping and a mild guffaw or three, The Producers may be set in the 1960s - but the superior 1968 version it's not.
Tachiguishi retsuden (2006)
A black, surrealist romp about divining free food in post-WWII Japan, with a lot of bizarre hidden extras by Ghost In The Shell director Mamoru Oshii
TACHIGUI: THE AMAZING LIVES OF THE FAST-FOOD GRIFTERS Japanese title: Tachiguishi Retsuden
Director: Mamoru Oshii Featuring: Toshio Suzuki, Mako Hyodo, Kenji Kawai, Shinji Higuchi, Katsuya Terada Narrated by Koichi Yamadera ----------------------------------------
Way back in 1995, Mamoru Oshii unleashed his dazzling animation feature Ghost In The Shell, which helped consolidate anime's international acceptance - and also burrowed itself into Andy and Larry Wachowski's overall concept for The Matrix.
The movie's sequel, Innocence (2004), was the inaugural Japanese animated film to compete for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and it left heads spinning as much for its style and innovative effects as for its oft unfathomable plot.
Always the trendsetter, Oshii has now presented us with Tachigui: The Amazing Lives Of The Fast-Food Grifters which has absolutely nothing to do with Ghost In The Shell, nor Japanese anime for that matter.
Say hello to Oshii's creation "superlivemation": not quite animation, nor exactly live-action. Instead the cast endured somewhere in the vicinity of 30,000 snapshots, which were digitally processed and reconstituted in a deceptively simple paper cut-out fashion reminiscent of Balinese puppetry. The movement itself is a stilted, stop-motion style that echoes sequences from Shinya Tsukamoto's experimental Tetsuo: Iron Man (1988).
"I couldn't think of any method but this one," said Oshii in a recent interview with The Daily Yomiuri. "I realized that this project was not suitable for traditional animation."
The cast choice is equally enigmatic. Kenji Kawai - who also composed the superlative soundtrack - appears as a ravenous burger fanatic, while renowned Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki spends his screen time being murdered in bizarre fashion. Others include Katsuya Terada, who dabbled with Oshii on Blood: The Last Vampire, and Shinji Higuchi - a special effects whiz who's worked on Godzilla movies.
Koichi Yamadera's narration sounds like the stuff of a dry NHK documentary which belies the comic undertone here as well as Yamadera's extensive career voicing stoic anime characters like Spike Siegel in Cowboy Bebop.
And the plot itself is a bizarre re-imagining of post-WWII Japan in the context of various fast-food off-shoots - from soba ramen shops to gyudon stand-up bars; American dogs in the heat-up trays of convenience stores to McDonalds- inspired burger-chain restaurants. "Food is a primal root of desire," asserted Oshii, by way of explanation.
Thrown into the mix is a new breed of consumer: the fast-food grifters of the title, people who don't like to pay for their tucker and are constantly fine-tuning their elaborate scams to score free munchies.
Oshii said his ulterior motive was homage to the "art" of eating food on the streets something still considered a bit of a taboo in this country, and which goes some way toward explaining the use of "tachigui" in the title.
The director of live-action movies (Avalon, Stray Dog) as well as animation, Oshii has often blurred the definition between the two mediums. The celluloid result here is deposited somewhere in the grey area between both formats.
At times the visual experiment here is as exhilarating as it can be irritating. Just don't ask what it's all really supposed to mean; Oshii's films, which are equal parts cerebral and innovative, are often not particularly clear story-wise. Where Oshii succeeds is via a liberal dose of black humor here you'll find Kentucky Fried Rat, death by hula-hoop, the world's fastest samurai burger chef and in the movie's very nature of surrealism.
This is a man who defers to the influence of filmmakers like Godard and Truffaut, and perhaps owes as much to Andrei Tarkovsky as he does David Lynch. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that at one stage a B-52 bomber does a fly- through in a Yoshinoya look-alike franchise. The 54-year-old writer-director seemed to think this natural. "The Japan I depicted in the movie may not necessarily be faithful to reality," he suggested.
Of course. --------------
By Andrez Bergen
Takeshis' (2005)
Takeshis' does a bit of a doppelganger dance
Two years after dusting down Shintaro Katsu's blind Zatoichi persona for his quirky period-drama re-jig, Takeshi Kitano is back in his own original territory - with a somewhat intriguing inclination towards double-vision.
Takeshis', which debuted at this year's Venice International Film Festival and subsequently screened at the celluloid festas in Vancouver, Toronto and London, has thus far traversed a bumpy course, with critical maulings riding shotgun up there alongside the more expected superlatives.
On one level a homage to the yakuza gangster flicks Kitano helped to define (since taken to the violent extreme by Takeshi Miike in Ichi The Killer), this movie also doubles as a parody of the style and might just be Kitano's farewell kiss to same. The 58-year-old writer/director has quipped that this is a funeral for the genres he explored over the last dozen movies, in particular the gangster premise, and die he apparently does - several times over - as do more than half the cast and extras in a series of grandiose shoot-outs. The yakuza die. The samurai and the sumo die. Heck, even the deejay in the club scene dies.
In the process Takeshis' throws together a smattering of melancholia, a whacked- out sense of humor, tap-dancing musical interludes, a Bonnie & Clyde twist, and touts more guns than a John Woo slug-fest. The narrative structure is as peppered as a spray of bullets from an Uzi.
The gist of the story is a shake-down of two characters played by 'Beat' Takeshi (Kitano) himself: one the "real life" movie star/director, and the other a shy, deadbeat convenience store clerk who aspires to an actor. But there's a third overwhelming id here, and that's Kitano's own on-screen alter ego from those earlier yakuza romps. The question - which one of these three is the real McCoy? - disintegrates as proceedings reach out on a surreal, metaphysical limb in which dreams interplay with reality, nightmares become farce - and then all swings violently back into an unsure version of the here and now. This makes for a sublime visual feast that's as baffling as it is refreshing.
Kitano's trilogy of parts aside, there's a bevy of other doppelgangers, mirror images and dead-ringers rife throughout this movie. Kotomi Kyono, while a tad dull as the movie star Takeshi's girlfriend, bears more than just costume jewelery sparkle in her ulterior role as a glitzy, ditsy yakuza girlfriend who happens to be the deadbeat Takeshi's tormenting neighbor.
As the creative synod here, Kitano certainly isn't afraid to poke fun at himself or the genres he's looked at more seriously in the past. But, after teasing with some mischievous insights, he then skirts the issue. And the weak moments in Kitano's earlier film Dolls (2002) - self-conscious "artistic" references - are stitched into Takeshis' with abandon. A recurring clown motif, bullets-as-star- constellations riff, and heavy-handed symbolism (in this case of a caterpillar) almost bludgeon the viewer, as if Monty Python had taken a blunt instrument to David Lynch - rendering it all a bit like Eraserhead on a bad hair day.
Not that this is such a bad thing; at times, it's brilliant. In some bizarre way - don't bother asking how - Kitano pulls off the slap-stick Mothra-sized larva pantomime that appears at various stages throughout proceedings.
But on the whole it's these asides that make the movie lurch, and off-shoots like the World War II scenes that book-end the film come off as just plain obscure. Takeshis' could have been that much stronger a movie. As it stands, in spite of (or because of) the pointed vignettes, the tap-dancing, and the associated meanderings-within-daydreams, it's a minor masterpiece. Just.
ANDREZ BERGEN
Black Jack: Futari no kuroi isha (2005)
Doctors In The Dark
Not the eponymous card game; the movie. Not last year's Israeli coming-of-age tale of the same name, nor 1998's Dolph Lundgren action flick helmed by John Woo; forget the 1968 spaghetti western revenge caper and the 1952 French Riviera smuggling escapade starring George Sanders as Captain Black Jack.
No, we're talking about Black Jack, the scalpel-packing-surgeon-for-hire - a character first dreamed up by the late Japanese manga (comic) and animation tensai Osamu Tezuka, in publication form, 32 years ago.
And now, without further ado, the obligatory origin story all comic books call for: Disfigured as a child after the detonation of an unexploded WWII bomb, Black Jack becomes a dapper-dressed, oft-brooding, mysterious, poker-faced doctor- about-town whose skills are undoubtedly a cut above his peers. He also happens to be a medically-unregistered quack who will labor to save any patient's life for excessively exorbitant rates.
Best known for his two super-cute '60s animation classics Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy), and Jungle Taitei (Kimba The White Lion) which Disney unashamedly plundered for The Lion King Osamu Tezuka's subsequent outing Black Jack was a more curious mix of pathos, psychological drama, and morality play - with a somewhat voyeuristic penchance for operating theater gore.
All the above weighted a fairly heavy anchor, then, on the shoulders of Makoto Tezuka, Osamu's son and heir to the Tezuka family franchise. Over the past year he's been directing the Black Jack series on Yomiuri TV, and now we have his cinematic follow-up: Black Jack: The Two Doctors Of Darkness.
The animated movie kick-starts with a terrorist attack on a shopping mall; cue quick-fire intro of our hero, with appropriate jazzy theme muzak, after which he's trotted off to the scene of the accident to risk life and possible limb to save a young child's life - and establish the renegade physician's underlying moral cred.
But it's also quickly apparent here that Tezuka, the son, is pining to pay too much visual homage to Tezuka, the father, and in doing so the character designs and much of the story-boarding pursue a similarly frustrating course to Metropolis (2001) - another Osamu Tezuka creation reinterpreted by Akira man Katsuhiro Otomo with Hayashi Shigeyuki, a.k.a. Rintaro. It may be heretical to say this, but Osamu's time has now passed. Characters with tree-trunk legs, no apparent feet beneath, and bulbous light-globe fixture noses above, are just plain out-of-place four decades on. And with animation, like in music, old-school is not always necessarily cool.
The fact is that Makoto is no slouch himself; he has a 20-year background in more esoteric film work including forays into 8mm. Yet one wouldn't suspect with Black Jack. This is animation that plays it pretty much by the book. There's none of the intuitive visual splendor here of Hayao Miyazaki, nor the more innovative combination of traditional 2D art with 3D computer graphics that Mamoru Oshii has excelled with in recent years.
There are moments of visual dexterity, especially in some of the more fluid background designs, but it's the story here that's the glue keeping the viewer snagged; while certainly not cutting edge, it's at times an incisive, mighty fine romp.
Initially focused on the tug-of-war between the two doctors of the title, Black Jack and his arch-nemesis Kiriko (who, in the best plot development, practices euthanasia-for-hire), the story detours into a showdown with the sinister Mr. Goodman, with the previously dueling practitioners forced to collaborate to prevent a global epidemic. The source?
a suitably mysterious, shut-down military medical installation. The location?
a conveniently menacing island tropical populated by a bevy of bizarre critters.
Meanwhile the doc who opens up more people than Homer Simpson does beer cans changes his civvies into surgical whites pretty much the same way as Cutey Honey switches between her zany costumes. But Black Jack also does the same thing with his wildly swinging moods. And he's wielding a set of scalpels blessed by a priest who just so happened to die in the process of blessing 'em. It's all rather over the top, but who cares?
While the character designs for Black Jack are somewhat lackadaisical, owing to the strict focus on their original still-life manga owners there are times when our hero's eyes have about as much life as a black bass's the personality of Black Jack is really brought to life in suitably strong and fractionally embittered dulcet intonations by his voice actor Akio Ohtsuka - who previously lent his vocal talents to the Section 9 strongman Bateau in the Ghost In The Shell movies and spin-off TV series, as well as voicing the antagonistic American pilot Curtis in Miyazaki's 1992 classic Kurenai no Buta (Crimson Pig).
But where the doc's "light relief" child assistant fits into this human drama is anyone's guess. Pinoko also is a legacy of the original Osamu Tezuka story, though in the manga there was something a little disturbing and dark about her role. In this movie, quite aside from the fact that she's not the sharpest scalpel in the medical kit, her cloying, annoying character is cursed with a shrill, penetrating vocal work-out by voice actor Yuko Mizutani that I can't quite forgive.
ANDREZ BERGEN