Tag: japan

Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker

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★★★
“A polit-thriller in Fantasy-land”

I have to start off with an important confession: I am not a gamer. I’ve never really been one. I might have played… two computer games in my entire life: “Tomb Raider 2” and “No-one Lives Forever 2”. That very special thing computer gamers experience when in front of the consoles? I’ve never felt it, it never got me. But then, I was born in the mid-70s, and this could be the territory of another generation. So maybe I’m not even qualified to evaluate a movie which was based on a computer game. On the other hand, I’m not reviewing a game here, but a film – and I think I know a fair bit about them! Hopefully, I get the details right.

Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker is based on the fantasy computer game franchise by Canadian computer game label BioWare. The series started in 2009. In 2012 – to probably the surprise of everyone – it received a movie version. Released in the West and co-produced by American anime label Funimation, it tells a separate story that ties in with the second released game “Dragon Age 2” (2011).

The story takes place in a land called Ferelden, where knights secure the freedom and which is governed by a religious organisation known as “the Chantry”. This is similar to a medieval church with, for want of a better description, a female Pope called “the Divine” at the top. Among the knights are the Seekers; they seem to be the superiors of the knights and hold a special place, reporting directly to the Chantry. There are tensions between the knights and blood magicians who seem to follow (as far as I understand this universe!) their own agenda.

When one of the knights, Byron, leaves the castle with a girl that the Seekers had just rescued from mages, his young colleague Cassandra (Kuriyama) gets in his way, demanding an explanation. Byron is her mentor and a father figure to her, but shortly after he gets killed in an attack. Before dying, he is able to tell Cassandra there is intrigue brewing in the Chantry, and that this was the reason he wanted to secure the girl, who obviously has magical abilities (she looks very much like an elf to me).

Regalyan D’Marcall (Tanihara), a mage whom Cassandra finds on the scene, turns out to be an ally of Byron who wanted to help him expose the intrigue. But having previously lost her brother to mages (there was a decapitation incident), Cassandra is suspicious of him. Still, together, the unlikely duo search out who’s behind all of what’s going on, and in the nick of time, also prevent an assassination attempt (with a dragon!) on the Divine at a jubilee celebration.

First off, the story moves quite quickly and never gets boring, coming in at a viewer-friendly runtime of 90 minutes. Personally, I am really happy to see, once in a while, a fantasy movie that sticks to the length I had been used to in the 80s, before all these Lord of the Rings, Hobbit and Harry Potter movies with their 2½-hour running times. The visual style is something the viewer will have to make up their own mind about. You will either like it or you won’t. It’s not total CGI. It looks as if people were acting, then motion-captured into the computer and their image re-worked. It looks similar to the science fiction movie Vexille that the same director had made earlier. For my personal tastes, I didn’t really embrace this style. Also, I thought for much of the time the movie looked too dark with regard to its colour palette.  But then, fantasy seems to be going through a “dark phase” right now, so maybe it’s unfair to count this as a real negative.

The story was smarter than I thought it would be, having ordered the used DVD to a low price, and knowing virtually nothing about the “Dragon Age” universe. To be honest, I still don’t know much about it – but you don’t need to be Albert Einstein to figure out the basics. Interestingly, I believe the character of Cassandra Pentaghast was a side character in the second computer game but was such a well-received badass, the developers decided to make her the main character in the first movie. (Also in 2011, there was another, live-action movie put together from a series of webisodes with the title Dragon Age: Redemption, about an Elvish assassin Tallis, starring Felicia Day. I haven’t seen it, as it’s too difficult/expensive to get here in Germany.)

Some changes in the game character were made to make Cassandra look a bit more feminine, e. g. she gets longer hair here. They also give her a backstory about why she hates mages so much, explaining why she treats the mage Regalyan with strong suspicion. He has to earn her trust: while that underlying subplot doesn’t make the story Shakespeare, it gives the characters enough emotional layers to come across as more than just one-dimensional. That doesn’t lead to a big love story, as would typically have been the cast. but lightens what could otherwise have been a very bare storyline, and leads to a satisfying end. At least he gets a little kiss on the cheek for helping her. Obviously, she is becoming soft, considering how quickly she has been drawing her sword over the entire movie! 😉

There are some surprises along the way, though I wouldn’t call them earth-shattering. There are steady, regularly appearing action sequences, between escape and investigation scenes and a grand finale showing that, while a female knight may not alone be able to prevent an assassination, she can at least deal with a gigantic dragon. But we all need a little help from our friends, right? There are some gory scenes, so this is not for kids, though nothing really shocked me. Admittedly, 8 seasons of Game of Thrones may have desensitized me in regard to the depiction of bloody fantasy violence. If you need them, they’re in here; if you don’t like gore, there aren’t too many to distract you from an otherwise entertaining enough, and comparatively short, fantasy movie.

The end seems to indicate another story will follow. But if that happened, it was probably in the form of another computer game, as the movie didn’t get a sequel. Overall, I think it’s safe to say that the movie can serve as a quick fantasy fix, if there is nothing else for you out there right now. Entertaining enough without being extraordinary, it has some nice developments and the main character is layered enough so that she doesn’t bore you. I give it 3 stars for acceptable, though hardly ground-breaking, solid fantasy entertainment. A fan of the franchise may value it higher or lower; as I’m not in the know about an extended universe that also features several books and comics, I will not presume to decide that for them!

Dir: Fumihiko Sori
Star (voice): Chiaki Kuriyama, Shōsuke Tanihara, Hiroshi Iwasaki, Kaya Matsutani 

Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail

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★★★½
“When you go on a journey of revenge, dig two, uh, MULTIPLE graves…”

[Jim] Almost four years after Black Lagoon, this five-episode mini-sequel was released, re-uniting us with Revy (Toyoguchi), Rock (Namikawa) and the other members of the Lagoon Company. They remain, as before, a somewhat shady outfit, operating out of the South-East Asian wretched hive of scum and villainy, which is the entirely shady city of Roanapur. This arc is also a reunion of sorts with Roberta (Tomizawa, who has been doing voice work since back when I was a “real” anime fan, in the days of Bubblegum Crisis!) She’s the lethal Colombian maid who guards the Lovelace family, with whom Revy and crew crossed swords in one of the Black Lagoon arcs, before Roberta returned to South America.

A politically-motivate bomb explosion there took out her master, and set Roberta off on a trans-continental mission of vengeance, beginning in her country, before crossing the globe to Roanapur. That’s because the people responsible are a black ops group affiliated with one wing of the US government. They are now in town, preparing to go up into the Golden Triangle on their next mission, capturing a Laotian drug-lord. Following her are the Lovelace heir, Garcia (Ikura) and back-up killer maid Fabiola. But quite a few others are also interested in the outcome, including another wing of the US government (CIA vs. NSA), and the various factions of organized crime who run the city.

If there’s an overall theme here, it’s perhaps “redemption for past sins.” Rock, in particular, is seeking to atone for his failure to save a young girl, in the events that ended Black Lagoon. But it sometimes seems that everyone has history, of one kind or another, which has left them carrying baggage: even the NSA assassins have issues. Rock may be the central character here and, disappointingly, Revy spends much of the show on the disabled list. But despite her being sidelined, there are no shortage of strong female characters who take no crap from anyone: Roberta, Fabiola, Miss Balalaika, Eda. Say what you like, Roanapur is clearly an equal-opportunity hive of scum and villainy.

If anything, this is perhaps even more hyper-violent than its predecessor; going from cable TV to video seems to have taken off some of the restraints. Parts #3 and #4 in particular seem almost like an extended exercise in carnage around the streets of the city – amusingly, neither the authorities nor the other inhabitants appear too fazed by these happenings! It’s all a little confusing, with so many players in the game, but things settle down a bit for a solid finale, upstream in the jungles of Laos. All told, if you liked Black Lagoon, then this is almost certainly going to be appreciated in the same way. One review called this a cross between the works of John Woo and Takashi Miike, and it’s hard to argue with that as an overall assessment.

★★★★
“Back with a bang!”

[Dieter] When a couple of years ago, Jim wrote a review on the 2006 anime series Black Lagoon I was a bit heartbroken. Not that anything was wrong with his review, but as a long-time fan of the series, I felt there was so much more to be said about it. Hopefully, I can do this here. One remark before you start reading: As I will spoil things here, it would be good first to have read Jim’s review before or watched the show. 

Rei Hiroe wrote the original manga, first tried out in 2001 and put into regular release in 2002. As often is the case, an anime adaption followed, ending after two seasons and 24 episodes – simply because there wasn’t any more material left to adapt. Hiroe had long suffered from depression, with new chapters coming out at longer and longer intervals; even today, there are only 13 volumes of the series. The first 6 were covered by the original anime series and volumes 7 – 9 by this OVA (Original Video Animation), produced in 2010/11. It consists of 5 x 30-minute episodes, a bit longer than the average episode of the original series.

The story is a stand-alone, nothing new for the show. Roberta’s Blood Trail opens with a callback to the previous story. Former Japanese business man Rokuro Okajima, is now re-named Rock and an employee of criminal delivery organization Black Lagoon. He tried unsuccessfully to save young girl and Yakuza boss Yukio from the evil machinations of a gang war between another Yakuza clan and Russian mafia organization “Hotel Moscow”, led by the merciless Balalaika. But unfortunately, the “law of the jungle” prevailed, resulting in a big gun-battle between Revy and Yakuza killer Ginji, and the suicide of Yukio.

His failure left him psychologically scarred: his intentions to help others have always backfired, as trigger-happy colleague and confidant Revy notes. At the same time, the head of the Lovelace family is accidentally killed by a CIA operation in South America. It leading the family maid, Roberta, who had already appeared in a previous story arc, to go on a full-blown revenge trip against the CIA. Regrettably, she chooses as her battle ground Roanapur, a small, fictional island and city somewhere around the border of Thailand and Cambodia, and home to Black Lagoon. 

This could draw unwanted attention to the criminal underworld of Roanapur, and endanger the peace between the criminal factions there, including Hotel Moscow. Mr. Chang from the Chinese triads asks Rock to help son Garcia Lovelace, and his younger employee, Fabiola, find Roberta – the sooner she leaves the island the better. Unfortunately, this is much more difficult than thought and leads to a three-front war between Roberta, Hotel Moscow and a CIA special squad lead by Major Caxton, responsible for the death of Garcia’s father.

The whole team responsible for this story has topped even their previous efforts. This really feels like the magnum opus of Rei Hiroe and director Sunao Katabuchi. The manga encompasses three whole volumes and was even more complicated, so the director had to boil down the story to bring the entire length of the OVA to 160 minutes. This is “the big one” (to quote James Bond’s M here): a large, ambitious tale beginning in 1969 Vietnam, and ending in the current day of the story (probably the early-to-mid-90s), in the Golden Triangle. Almost every character still alive is used for this epic. While the whole story takes a little while to get into motion, once it builds up steam, it’s a relentless action ride.

But the faint of heart be warned: If previous episodes of the show were already adult content and definitely not for kids, that is even more true for the OVA. The violence depicted is very strong, with neither mangaka nor director showing any qualms about going the whole nine yards. So, there is blood, mayhem and even scenes of torture and sexual abuse.  But it’s not just about being daring, by showing extreme violence in the unforgiving world of gangsters, agents and soldiers. One theme the show constantly deals with – sometimes subtly, here more obviously – is psychological trauma.

Roberta’s rampage is not just about the death of her master. She suffers from overwhelming guilt for previous actions in her life. It’s directly indicated in her hallucinations, and also her taking medication. Former Afghanistan veteran Balalaika is asked in a key scene by Major Caxton, if psychological problems were the reason for her dismissal from the army. And in another revealing moment, Revy experiences a flashback to her youth that gives us a difficult to digest look at how she may have started on the path to the place in life where she is now. It’s a scene only in the anime, not the manga. It confirms once again that, while the manga is great and I love it, the animated version by Katabuchi is something special, and an improvement over the manga.

The story repeatedly stresses the fact that children who are mistreated by authority figures may end up as frightening, violent monsters when they grow up. They struggle with what they have become, and look back filled with pain to the innocent dreams of their youth. It’s something also covered in previous story-arcs, e. g. the vampire twins, but there is more insight (and more pain) here, and it has become a predominant theme. At the same time, Hiroe and Katabuchi do not release their anti-heroes from responsibility. Revy in particular is called out by Fabiola about her hypocrisy. If she is so unhappy with her life what stops her leaving Roanapur with Rock and opening a fruit stand in some other place? Revy’s response is little more than the usual showing-off and “I’m already dead!” speech.

On a larger scale, the OVA shows the connection between organized criminality and “legal” institutions like the C.I.A.. Roanapur, we learn, can exist the way it does only because major powers in the so-called civilized world need it, for purposes of which the public will never hear. In a way, the series opens a can of worms and it will be interesting to see if Rei Hiroe ever returns to this. He didn’t in the three manga volumes he has written since then.

Black Lagoon has never been a “happily ever after” story. Most characters have to pay a high toll here, with Rock being overtaken by “the darkness of Roanapur”, and becoming obsessed with “finally winning”, while Roberta suffers more physical losses. Yet the end seems almost cautiously optimistic. Roberta survives and is “conquered by love”, so to speak. The end titles show her and Garcia welcoming Major Caxton and company in their home. Even Rock hasn’t totally given up. His gun finger points at Roanapur as he says to Revy: “One day…!”

I just love the show. With many memorable characters, and great action scenes that remind me of American action movies of the 1980s and 70s, yet with deeper themes and reflections on human nature, plus musings that go into philosophy, psychology, heck, even the intrinsic nature of evil of large-scale organizations, it is an absolute exceptional series. And while other series like Jormungand or the always beloved Cowboy Bebop may touch similar chords, there is hardly a show that challenges Black Lagoon on its own territory. My only qualm is that the overall story is still not finished. Somehow, based on everything so far, I can’t picture an ending where Rock and Revy just walk happily into the sunset.

Dir: Sunao Katabuchi et al.
Star (voice): Megumi Toyoguchi, Daisuke Namikawa, Michie Tomizawa, Kazue Ikura

Kunoichi Hunters: Sentenced to Female Hell

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★★★
“Not so hellish.”

This rating is perhaps influenced by my seriously low expectations here. Having seen my share of generic “female ninja” films, all too often they tend to be thinly-disguised exercises in soft-porn. Any action elements are usually secondary, at best. That’s not the case here. Well, at least, not entirely. You’ll not mistake this for Crouching Tiger, yet there has been some thought put into the plot and characters, and this helps elevate proceedings to the level of satisfactorily watchable. Which is, as noted, considerably more than I was anticipating. It comes as a pleasant surprise, especiallyfor a film so obscurist, the IMDb doesn’t recognize it, director Noto’s sole credits being as an assistant in that role. The Amazon Prime synopsis is also from Kunoichi, and so wildly inaccurate in every way.

The actual story present concerns Benimaru (Asami), a member of a clan of ninjas, who has been tasked with assassinating a feudal lord and stealing a scroll containing the location of his treasure. While she succeeds, this is only the start of her issues. The lord’s family sends out hunters after her; various independent parties are after the scroll as well; and even her own clan seek to dispose of her. For, as we eventually find out, Benimaru only accepted the mission to try and save her girlfriend, Kikyo (Ayana), from execution, after they were caught in flagrante. When they meet up, a happy ending seems possible – yet is far from inevitable.

We’ve covered a number of Asami films before, the most notable ones being Gun Woman, The Machine Girl and the Lust of the Dead trilogy, and she provides good value again here. She’s perhaps the modern equivalent of someone like Meiko Kaji, with charisma that elevates almost anything she’s in. There is genuine acting to be seen, such as in her scenes with Kikyo and she also is capable of doing a bit more than simply waving a sword about. It helps that Noto, whether by accident or design, keeps the camera relatively static. The plot provides a constant stream of obstacles to be overcome, such as the brother and sister bounty-hunters. Perhaps there just wasn’t any chance for more than the couple of sexy scenes (one with the lord, the other with her girlfriend) which get squeezed in to the 70-minute running time.

It’s to the film’s credit that it would work as a low-budget actioner, even without the nudity at all. Admittedly, the production values extend to little more than a few costumes, with the bulk of the film spent either running around a forest, or sitting around a cave. Yet the cast and crew manage to keep it more interesting than that might sound, with the heroine quickly realizing that few people are what they seem. Mind you, she gives as good as she gets on that front, with her ninja talents including voice impersonation. And, it seems, hiding underneath an extremely large straw hat. Who knew?

Dir: Hidemi Noto
Star: Asami, Rei Ayana, Takashi Irie, Yoshihiro Sato

Ghost Squad

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★★★½
“The real female Ghostbusters…”

I’ll confess, the headline above is a bit click-baity. This is perhaps closer to a female version of The Frighteners, the early Peter Jackson film in which Michael J. Fox could see dead people, and had to learn to work with them. The conduit in this case is Rika (Yanagi), a young woman who has been able to see ghosts since a young age. But an encounter with a trio of ghosts, all murder victims who are seeking revenge on their killers, opens a whole new realm. For, it turns out, whenever Rika is in a life-threatening situation, the spirits can take physical form. They can also draw energy from her, which can be used to create weapons, which range from the merely strange (the “meat hammer”) to the bat-shit insane. None more so there, than that of Akari (Mikado). She has a tendency to go into puppy mode when stressed, which involves her becoming… a bit licky. So inevitably her weapon transforms Akari’s hand into Grudge Dog, capable of ripping the face off her opponent.

For I didn’t yet mention, the director is also responsible for some of the finest examples in Japanese splatter, perhaps peaking with The Machine Girl (which may well have informed one of the weapons here, as shown in the trailer). But also including a hand in Mutant Girl Squad and Robogeisha. This is relatively restrained, though the key-word there is “relatively.” There’s certainly the same degree of lunatic inventiveness at work, although the arterial spurting is considerably lower pressure than you’d expect: the comparison above to early Peter Jackson is entirely deliberate.  For the most part it’s goofily endearing rather than outrageously offensive, and quite well thought out. Even if Rika is more a pipeline for vengeance, she tries to act as the group’s moral compass, for example refusing to let the ghosts take vengeance on the daughter of one culprit.

There are still a few scenes which seem a bit sleazy. Not least, that the energy transfer mentioned above is lip-to-lip. Basically, it’s a shallow excuse for some lesbo makeout sessions, which feels at odds with an approach which sometimes seems closer to Disney than extreme gore. And there’s some dancing in underwear which made me feel mildly uncomfortable; it seemed gratuitous, even by Iguchi’s standads. I was also surprised by the way the vengeance largely ended up compacted into a single battle; if this had been paced throughout the film (like Kill Bill), it might have been more effective and enjoyable. However, I still watched the vast bulk of this with a grin on my face, and laughed out loud more than once. It perhaps helped that, going in, I didn’t know who the director was; indeed, the poster above was about all I had to go on. My expectations were closer to a light comedy with action elements, and the imagination here definitely came as a pleasant surprise.

Dir: Noboru Iguchi
Star: Anna Yanagi, Sumire Ueno, Minori Mikado, Yuni Hong

Ninja She-Devil

  By

★½
“Have semen, will travel.”

Ninjas were famed for their mystical powers, but Tsubame (Asami), the heroine here, has… well, let’s just say, a rather different talent. And I quote her brother, Hayabusa: “The ability to store a man’s seed inside your womb for seven days after intercourse.” This raises a number of questions, not least: how did this get discovered, considering Tsubame is a virgin at this point? Anyway, this skill is needed because of… Ah, to heck with it. Hayabusa explains it as well as I could:

As you know, Lord Kuniyoshi doesn’t have a wife. Because of that, Koicha, the concubine of Lord Kunisada, his father, is apparently plotting to have him assassinated to elevate her own son Kunitsuna to become the next in line. Kaede, Lord Kuniyoshi’s wife, has already been cursed by some sort of spell caster and can’t resist earthly temptations any longer. Though Lord Kuniyoshi planned to have his concubine, Yamabuki, bear his child so he could become the rightful heir, summoning Yamabuki would be too dangerous. That’s when Lord Kuniyoshi remembered your secret ability.

Yep, Tsubame has to become a sort of human turkey-baster, storing Kuniyoshi’s semen and making the perilous journey to deliver it to Yamabuki (Hanazawa). Even before she has left, Tsubame has to fend off attacks from those with an interest in preventing delivery of the sticky package. On the way, she meets Kagero, another former kunoichi (lady ninja), who used to be in love with Hayabusa. Meanwhile, the heroine’s boyfriend, Taichi, is captured and used as leverage against Tsubame. But, to be perfectly clear here, this is almost entirely about the sex. Lots of sex. It’s not sub-titled “Legend of the Voluptuous Kunoichi” for nothing, and that’s more accurate than the title by which it was released here.

It’s probably significant that this is the first time I can remember, where I have written a good three-quarters of the review before the film even ends. For as I type these words, it is still playing in another window, cutting between two separate, simultaneous sex scenes, neither of which are particularly interesting. Like all the other such sequences, they’re basically a good amount of wriggling, accompanied by some high-pitched squeaking from reasonably photogenic actresses. If you’re looking for… Oh, I dunno, ninja-ing, or even she-devilling, you’re going to need to look elsewhere. While there are a couple of fight sequences, these are so perfunctory and limited in their staging, you wonder why they bothered at all.

Before watching this, I had to check very carefully to be sure I hadn’t reviewed this before, given the plethora of films with similar titles. I still suspect I may have, and simply blanked it from my memory. And there go the end credits, slightly less than seventy minutes after we began. At least I didn’t have to waste much time on this. Oh, hey, the actress also sings the end theme. Yuma Asami is clearly a woman of many talents – not just wriggling and squeaking. And look, the behind the scenes footage shows them presenting the naked actress with a bunch of flowers. That’s nice.

Dir: Yoshikazu Katô
Star: Yuma Asami, Yûya Matsuura, Lemon Hanazawa, Toji Yanagi
a.k.a. Kunoichi

Camp

  By

★★★
“Nastiness, strong-style.”

Kozue (Yokoyama) and her younger sister Akane (Momomiya) are driving through the countryside when their car breaks down, near a closed camp-ground. Closed – but, unfortunately for them, not deserted. The well-mannered young man whom they first encounter turns out to be a lure, who brings the two women into the grasp of a pack of psychopaths. The nicknames these weirdos have, largely sum up the extreme peril of the situation for the siblings: Hypo, Pyro, Copro, Necro and Thanatos. It turns out they were all pals during an enforced stay in a nearby mental hospital. When that shut down suddenly (in a way explained later on), they opted to hang around, forming some kind of sexually-deviant collective. Kozue and Akane pretty much represent a theme-park for these perverts.

What follows is pretty tough to watch. And regular readers will know I’m hard to rock, having about 35 years of watching “video nasties” under my belt. This, though… It goes beyond the simple unpleasantness of say, I Spit on Your Grave, perhaps due to the sick inventiveness here. I mean, effectively vacuum-sealing a victim inside one of those giant plastic bags, typically used for storing bedding, and watching her suffocate? Then there’s the bit where Pyro lives up to his name – likely the scene where I questioned most quite why I was watching this. For one of our mantras here, is that when it comes to rape-revenge films, we are considerably more interested in the revenge than the rape. Which is why the original ISoYG isn’t here, but the reboot entries area.

This certainly teeters on the edge of the same exclusion, despite Kozue’s sterling efforts to draw the assailants’ attention to her and away from Akane. There’s a subplot which helps to explain the frosty relationship between the sisters, dating back to an incident involving them and Akane’s then-boyfriend. Eventually, Thanatos (Kawatsure), who seems considerably less enthusiastic about the depravity than the others, helps Kozue make a break for it. She then meets a former nurse from the facility (Ayana), who explains the history behind the posse of perverts. Although she has been trying to take them down, success has eluded her until now, when Kozue’s arrival might give her the added help necessary.

And this is where the movie does just about deliver the adequate level of revenge necessary to qualify here. For the two women team up to ensure no-one else has to suffer the same atrocities as Kosue and Akane. But even this is not as unequivocal as it could be, for the avengers are unable to agree on how Thanatos should be treated. Is it a case of, as my mother used to say, if you fly with the crows, you’ll be shot with the crows? Or do his actions perhaps indicate a salvageable slice of humanity, not deserving of the same penalties as his associates? A thoughtful movie would probably have done a better job of examining these moral issues. The target here is considerably more visceral, no argument. Yet even a low blow like this can still pack a punch.

Dir: Ainosuke Shibata
Star: Miyuki Yokoyama, Peach Momomiya, Hiroaki Kawatsure, Rei Ayana

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

  By

★★★★½
“The wind rises.”

After the enormous critical, if not commercial, success of Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro, Miyazaki was commissioned to create a manga series for Animage magazine, with a potential film adaptation attached. Publication began in early 1982, but it would take a dozen years, albeit of intermittent publication, before that story was complete. When the series’s popularity among Animage readers was established, work began on the film adaptation, covering the early portion of the manga. Since this was before Miyazaki’s own Studio Ghibli was founded, an external company, Topcraft, were commissioned to create the animation. The budget was only $1 million, with a mere nine-month production schedule leading up to its release in March 1984.

It takes place on a post-apocalyptic world, a thousand years after the near-mythical “Seven Days of Fire”, pushed humanity to the edge of extinction. Since then, nature has taken over much of the planet, covering it in an expanding toxic jungle where the very air is poisonous in a few minutes. It is populated by equally lethal creatures, at the top being the “ohmu”, gigantic insectoids capable of destroying anything in its path. The human race is reduced to clinging on to the fringes, such as the small kingdom of the Valley of the Wind, in which a never-ending breeze keeps the toxins at bay. There, the king’s daughter, Nausicaä (Shimamoto), is one of the few brave enough to enter and explore the jungle, and has developed a mutually respectful relationship with its strange inhabitants.

The balance is destroyed when a plane from the kingdom of Tolmekia crashes. In its cargo is an enormous “God Warrior” – one of those which carried out the Seven Days of Fire – recently dug out from where it had been buried. Tolmekia and their rivals, Pejite, are wrestling for control of the warrior and the power it wields, and the crash drags the Valley of the Wind into their conflict. In particular, Princess Kushana of Tolmekia (Sakakibara) intends to use the warrior to destroy the jungle and restore mankind’s dominion over the planet. Nausicaä is ferociously opposed to this scheme, especially after discovering that the jungle is actually purifying the atmosphere and soil, absorbing the toxins from the apocalypse. She’ll do anything to stop Kushana, including being willing to sacrifice her own life if necessary.

There’s a lot going on here, as you can see. It’s somewhat understandable why, when initially shown in the West (one of the first examples of anime to receive a theatrical release), 22 minutes was cut out, in order to market it as a children’s film, retitled Warriors of the Wind. The problem is, like almost all of the director’s work, it is not a children’s film. This is not a uncommon mistake – presumably based on them having a child as the central characters, and because they’re animated, which still largely equates to Disney in many people’s minds. But they’re more about that age capturing an innocent and idealistic mentality. This is undeniably mature and thoughtful cinema. In just his second feature, and first original film, Nausicaä establishes several themes which would run through almost all of Miyazaki’s future work, in varying degrees: the joy of flight, concern for the environment, and a strong female presence.

Miyazaki’s father ran an airplane parts company in World War II, and even his film company, Studio Ghibli, was named after an Italian plane. Almost every one of his movies includes a flying sequence, and Nausicaä certainly has plenty of them, whether its the heroine skimming across the desert on her one-person glider, or gigantic warships looming, threateningly, in the sky. Despite the imperfect animation, a result of the limited resources, the sense of wonder and awe is undeniable. If you don’t want to take to the skies after seeing these scenes, you might want to check for a pulse. Similarly, there’s no denying Miyazaki is firmly on the side of nature, with his heroine believing all life to be sacred, and humanity deserving no special place above any other species. If mankind can’t live in harmony with the world, the movie suggests, it’s mankind which needs to change. Bending nature to our will is always going to backfire.

But it’s with the depiction of womankind that the film truly succeeds. In Nausicaä and Kushana, you have two fully-formed characters that are not just among the best in animated film, they could stand beside the protagonist and antagonist of most live-action movies. The latter, in particular, demonstrates Miyazaki’s skill at depicting those who would be flat-out villains in less nuanced films, instead being given motivation and depth. While you may not agree with Kushana resurrecting the God Warrior, you can understand what she is trying to accomplish. Her actions stem from a genuine belief that what she is doing is best for the future of mankind. She just has a military-industrial approach to that, in sharp contrast to the one emphasizing ecological science and harmony, preferred by Nausicaä. Interesting to note that, in the 2005 Disney English-language dub, Kushana was voiced by Uma Thurman.

The story here builds to a stellar climax, in which a massive herd of ohmu are lured into a stampede towards the valley, while simultaneously the God Warrior is unleashed by Kushana, to horrific effect. [The animation for the latter was done by a young Hideki Anno, who’d go on to become a master of the genre himself, best known for Neon Genesis Evangelion. In a 2006 Japanese poll, Evangelion was the only anime ranked ahead of Nausicaä as an all-time favourite] Our heroine puts herself in harm’s way in an effort to stop the carnage, and… Well, I won’t spoil it in detail; Miyazaki manages to pull off an ending which could easily have come off as contrived or ridiculous, and is instead emotionally satisfying. With even the Tolmekians forces humbled by nature, as environmental messages delivered by teenagers go, it’s certainly a great deal more effective than an angry Scandinavian shrieking “HOW DARE YOU!” at the audience.

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
Star (voice): Sumi Shimamoto, Gorō Naya, Yōji Matsuda, Yoshiko Sakakibara

Princess Mononoke

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★★★½
“Princess Die”

To some extent, this was the film which “broke” Miyazaki in the West, being his first feature to receive an unedited theatrical release in America. It wasn’t a huge commercial success, taking only about $2.4 million in North America. But it was very well-received, Roger Ebert listing it among his top ten films of 1999. It likely opened the door for the success of Spirited Away, which would win Miyazaki the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards. But if I’m being honest, I don’t like it as much as many of his movies. While there’s no denying the imagination and enormous technical skill here, it doesn’t resonate emotionally with me in the same way. I think it’s probably the central character, who is relatively bland and uninteresting, even compared to other characters in the movie.

Firstly though: no, there’s no-one called “Mononoke” in this. It’s not a name, but a Japanese term describing a supernatural shape-shifting creature. Though even this seems ripe to cause confusion, because there are no shape-shifting princesses to be found either. And despite the title, the protagonist is Ashitaka (Matsuda), a prince of the Emishi tribe in medieval Japan, whose arm becomes infected after an encounter with a demon-possessed wild boar. As happens… Seeking a cure before the rest of his body follows suite, despite the superhuman strength it gives him, Ashitaka heads into the Western lands, and straight into the middle of an ongoing battle.

On one side is Lady Eboshi (Tanaka), the ruler of Irontown, a progressive and industrial settlement, in need of the resources which can be found in and under the nearby forest. On the other is San (Ishida), a young woman raised by wolves, who has vowed to protect the woods and their inhabitants, including the Great Forest Spirit. It’s their conflict which is really the core of the film, with Ashitaka’s quest to get his demonic arm fixed, taking a back-seat for most of the (lengthy, at 133 minutes) running-time here. Probably for the best, since he is, as mentioned, perhaps the least charismatic or engaging protagonist in the entire Miyazaki canon. His arm is easily the most interesting thing about him – and that keeps wanting to strike out on its own. When your own limb wants to go solo, you might be the problem… To quote Lady Eboshi, “I’m getting a little bored of this curse of yours, Ashitaka. Let me just cut the damn thing off.” #ImWithTeamEboshi

But enough of him. Let’s focus on what works here, which would be San and Eboshi. The first time we see San, her face is smeared in blood which she has sucked up and spat out, from a wound in the side of a gigantic white wolf. [This is certainly the most hardcore of Miyazaki’s films, with decapitations and limbs being lost at a rate closer to an entry in the Lone Wolf & Cub franchise.] She’s relentlessly aggressive in attitude, going so far as to stage a one-woman assault on Irontown in an attempt to assassinate her enemy. She tells Ashitaka, “I’m not afraid to die. I’d do anything to get you humans out of my forest.” That said, she’s still considerably less creepy than the forest apes who want to eat him.

Eboshi, on the other hand, is a complete contrast to the near-feral San, and remarkably progressive, especially considering the era and location. Her town is a haven for the disenfranchised and those society considers “untouchables”, including both lepers and prostitutes, the latter whose contracts she bought out and who now work in her iron mill. Her citizens and their welfare are what she cares about, above all, and she’s completely fearless about who she has to go through for that purpose. “She’s not even afraid of the gods, that woman,” says one of Irontown’s residents about their ruler, admiringly. They aren’t wrong, for she subsquently tells her warriors, “I’m going to show you how to kill a god, a god of life and death. The trick is not to fear him.” It’s remarkably easy to envisage a version where the roles are reversed, and she is the heroine. The fact she’s a gun enthusiast, is just a bonus!

Ashitaka’s role is largely to act as a middleman between the two worlds: somewhat more than human, yet less than divine. That remains the case even at the end, as he agrees to spent part of his time in the forest with San, and part of it working alongside Lady Eboshi in Irontown. It’s potentially an awkward and unsatisfying compromise, storywise, yet Miyazaki makes it work better than you feel it should.  But there are a couple of perplexing missteps too. For one, when the animals of the forest are talking, there’s zero effort to make their lips synch up. It’s bizarre and distracting. And in the Japanese version, the voice of San’s wolf mother, Moro is a man. Someone known in Japan as a drag queen, admittedly – but a man none the less, a weird choice which confused the heck out of me [score one for the dub, at least, which had Gillian Anderson as the character]

The overall result is undeniably beautifully animated, and epic in its scope and invention. As ever, Miyazaki excels at creating a world which is like our own, yet simultaneously completely alien. However, it all gets rather wearing, especially at the length depicted here. My attention simply ran dry during the second half, as the multiple different factions began hacking or gnawing away on each other, with the personal and intense quality of the Eboshi/San conflict getting lost in the bigger picture. It’s in putting over the intensely personal elements of large stories, that Miyazaki is unsurpassed – never mind just in animation, among film-makers as a whole. This isn’t the best demonstration of his talents in that area.

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki
Star: Yōji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Yūko Tanaka, Kaoru Kobayashi

Bloody Chainsaw Girl

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★★★
“Japan Chainsaw Mascara.”

A solid enough entry in the Jap-splat genre, this benefits mostly from a winning central performance from Uchida as the title character, Giko Nokomura. Her family are in the demolition business, which is at least a token gesture towards explaining the F-sized chainsaw she carries everywhere – initially in a guitar case! She’s a bit of a delinquent, harking back to the sukeban movies of the sixties like Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom, and with some resemblance to Meiko Kaji, in attitude more than anything. Despite her bad girl credentials, she does want to graduate (there’s a speech later on about how delinquents actually love their schools, and the identity it gives them), and on this summer day, is going back to the otherwise largely-deserted educational establishment, to re-take a missed test.

Of course, it’s never that simple, is it. For pitted against her is her nemesis, Nero Aoi (Yamachi), plus the army of cyborg students created by this wannabe mad scientist. She started off by kidnapping and working on pets, but now has a lethal array of “enhanced” humans at her disposal, such as “Whole-Body Bomber” and former cheerleader Sayuri Bakutani (Sato). Nero is intent on taking her revenge on Giko, following a perceived slight which the latter has long forgotten. Even before she has arrived at school for the exam, Giko is under attack by the first three of these, including a girl with a rocket-launcher embedded in… a most unusual part of her body. Let’s just say, reloading is fun.

Based on the manga series Chimamire Sukeban Chainsaw, by Rei Mikamoto, it has the fast-and-loose sensibility you’d expect, with things taking place for little or no reason other than the maker thought it’d be entertaining. Sometimes they are correct, other times… not so much. There seem to be flashbacks every three minutes, explaining how everyone got to where they are, and it alternates between scenes that go on beyond their merit or purpose, and ones which feel too short. The low-budget is often palpable, falling well short of being able to deliver what is asked of it, and the blood is more digital than physical.

Despite these flaws, I was entertained, though obviously, those of delicate sensibilities should stay well away. Uchida has an appropriate range of expressions for the situations in which Giko finds herself – “deadpan astonishment” is probably the main one which gets used. There’s a dry sense of humour in concepts like the school having a Ninja Club, such as them still deferring obsequiously to the jocks). When Giko meets the president of Shop Club, who is also about its only un-cyborged member, her chainsaw gets some power-ups (“Extending Chainsaw”), though it still proves no match for Nero’s “Chainsaw of the Dead”. Actually, how you react to that sentence will likely determine whether or not you’ll enjoy this. Personally, if a little short of the best entries in this strange little genre, I still found plenty here to appreciate.

Dir: Hiroki Yamaguchi
Star: Rio Uchida, Mari Yamachi, Seira Sato, Yuki Tamaki

Blind Woman’s Curse

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★★★
“The girls with the dragon tattoo”

Akemi Tachibana (Kaji) is second in command of her yakuza gang. During a battle with another group, she accidentally blinds Aiko Gouda (Tokuda), the sister of an enemy – an incident Akemi believes leaves her cursed, after a black cat laps up the blood spilled as a result. Following three years in jail, she returns to find the clan on the verge of war against their rivals, the Dobashi group. Various members of the Tachibanas are turning up dead, and with their tattoos flayed off. Turns out that Gouda has joined the Dobashi gang, with the aim of extracting vengeance on the woman who took her sight, even though Akemi has borne the guilt of that event ever since. 

When it concentrates on their relationship, the film is really good, with both actresses commanding the screen with an impressive presence. This leads to a final confrontation which certainly feels like it may have been an influence on the one at the end of Kill Bill, Volume One, between the Bride and O-Ren. What’s particularly outstanding is the surprising way in which it is resolved: based on everything you’ve seen to that point, you’d be forgiven for betting, odds-on, that there will be an oce-lot of arterial spray. There isn’t – though I’ll say not much more than that. It’s a strangely effective moment, like a Western where the two gunslingers eventually face off at high noon… and decide to go for a pint instead.

What’s considerably less effective is the stuff around the edges, much of which is silly – or, perhaps, played a great deal better on the page than the screen. For example, Akemi’s female minions each have part of a dragon tattooed on their back, so when they expose their shoulders and line up, it forms the entire thing. Which sounds really cool, but ends up looking more like a samurai version of the Human Centipede. There’s also the member of the enemy clan who goes around wearing a scarlet loin-cloth. It’s difficult to take someone as a threat, when they’ve apparently forgotten to put their pants on. In its defense, this is apparently played for comedy purposes, because he smells. Yeah. About that…

This illustrates the film’s main weakness, an apparent desire to be all things to all viewers. I’m not if the audience in 1970’s Japan was crying out for comedy-horror-yakuza-swordplay films, because that’s what they get here, and the various elements vary too much in quality and fail to mesh together at all. When it concentrates on what it does well – and that’s the relationship between the two female leads – it’s very good. You can easily see why Kaji, making her debut under that name here, would go on to stardom. Given how effectively they play off each other, it’s something of a surprise Tokuda didn’t follow suit, though she did go on to become (briefly) the last of writer Henry Miller’s five wives.

Dir: Teruo Ishii
Star: Meiko Kaji, Hoki Tokuda, Makoto Sako, Hideo Sunazuka