★★★
“Battle Angel Cutie”
Or, perhaps: “What Blade Runner would have been like, if android Roy Batty was a good guy.” For this appears to be a mash-up of elements from that and Battle Angel Alita. While preceding the film version of the latter, it does seem to borrow elements of the manga, not least in its depiction of a future society where there is a strict, and basically vertical, division between the haves and the have-nots. After disease and pollution have pushed society to the brink, the rich and powerful live towards the top of a self-sufficient mega-city, under the control of ice queen Lady Jiru (Ishida) and her “Sodom” cyborg enforcers, leaving everyone else struggling for scraps down below. And leaving is a death sentence, due to the viruses infecting the outside world.
Falling from the sky, also just like Alita, is Hitomi Kisaragi (Nishiuchi), an android girl with the ability to transform, created by her scientist “father”, Professor Kisaragi. Witnessing this event is a young child, Hayami. Years later, he has become a journalist (Miura), and encounters Hitomi again as she stops a Sodom patrol from arresting an opponent to Jiru’s rule. He tracks Hitomi down, and requests her help in the resistance movement of which he is a member, telling her Jiru is actively causing the pollution which affects the lower levels. However, there are other members of their group, intent on taking more direct and violent action against the powers that be, and there’s also uncertainty over what happened to Prof. Kusaragi.
I really liked the look of this film: with the split between rich and poor, the style manages both to be sleekly neon and grimly dystopian, having its design cake and eating it too. Admittedly, the level of devotion to Blade Runner becomes almost slavish – somewhat ironic, watching this in November 2019, the month and year in which Blade Runner was originally set. However, I guess there are few if any better movies from which to lift. I also admired the maker’s willingness to go in a radically different direction to the previous Cutie Honey live-action adaptation, Gone is the cute bounciness, replaced by a dark, almost cyberpunk approach. It’s one best personified by the excellent performance of Ishida as Lady Jiru, who looks and acts every inch the part of an evil overlord.
The story-line, however, is severely underwhelming, with elements that are unconvincing when clear, and unclear when they are convincing. While we do get the expected confrontation between Hitomi and Jiru, the former has to deliver, with a straight face, lines of dialogue like “Because I’m incomplete, I never give up… Because I have defects, I will beat you.” Cue much rolling of eyes here. More generally, neither Hitomi nor Hayami provide enough to make you want to keep watching: Rutger Hauer and Harrison Ford, they most definitely are not. As a result, you’re left largely to admire the production design, while waiting for the next Jiru appearance. It’s not quite sufficient.
Dir: Asai Takeshi
Star: Mariya Nishiuchi, Takahiro Miura, Nicole Ishida, Sousuke Takaoka