Guyver 2: Dark Hero (1994)... Angie's Pick for April

Angie

I have a weakness for renaissance men. You know, the type who can do just about anything? David Hayter is a screenwriter who worked on both X-Men and X2. He's also a voice actor, known for both the charming Lupin III in Castle of Cagliostro, and the gruff and hardened Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series. Being a fan of all three of those, I became a fan of the man himself. So when I heard he had also done live action films, I found a movie called Guyver 2: Dark Hero. A quick internet search told me that a viewing of the first film was unnecessary, and after Noel picked it and I was forced to watch it, I think we can all agree that the internet was trying to do me a favor back then. But will the sequel be an improvement over the original?

Before we begin, we should probably note that Jack Armstrong being replaced by David Hayter isn't the only casting change going on at the moment. While Jack no doubt got the boot due to his poor acting skills, it's only the demands of real life that caused our own Monthly Midnight Casting Change. It's with a heavy heart that I must tell you Tony will no longer be continuing on this journey with us. We enjoyed his sharing of the Ninja trilogy, and we got to expose him to some interesting films he had never seen before, but for the present, we must go on without him. He will be missed! But I hope you will join me in welcoming another renaissance man to our crew - Jak. Like David Hayter, Jak is also a writer and an actor, as well as a musician. His busy schedule doesn't often leave him time to watch films, but this project may change that.

All right, time to get on with it.

We start off being told that one year has passed since the original film. Sean still has the Guyver suit, and he's struggling with it. The suit is not content to sit around and live out a peaceful life with Mizky. It wants to kill evil doers, so Sean is being drawn out at night to do just that. He finds some thugs who are smuggling cocaine inside dolls, and proceeds to tear them apart. Their boss begs to simply be arrested, but the Guyver suit wants blood.

Back at home, Sean is plagued by nightmares where the suit makes him completely lose control. He also keeps seeing strange alien shapes that he sketches out in his notebook. While watching a television show where a man swears his brother was killed by a werewolf, the man shows a cave drawing he found near the site, and the drawing contains the same images Sean is seeing in his dreams. It turns out this all happened at the site of an archaeological dig, and Sean heads off to find it.



While asking for directions to the site, he runs into Cori, the daughter half of the father-daughter team directing the dig. She begrudgingly agrees to bring him along because she understands his quest for answers. She and her father are searching for answers themselves. They specialize in trying to find evidence of aliens, bigfoot, and the like. Their project is being funded by a corporation, and sure enough, it's Kronos, and all their men are really zoanoids. There's also a government agent named Atkins who is undercover on the dig. He knows something is up with Sean and wants his help to uncover this whole mess.

Eventually, they dig up an alien spaceship and find more Guyver suits inside. Kronos wants them, the government wants them, Cori and her father want to study them and prove to the scientific community that they're not crackpots, but only Sean knows it's best to get rid of them altogether. The ship keeps calling to him, and when he finally enters it dressed as the Guyver, it gives him some back story on the whole process. It reveals that the Guyver was a mistake made by the aliens - they wanted to use humans as their soldiers, but humans proved too unpredictable.

Amidst all this plot, there are of course fights between the Guyver and the zoanoids, and honestly, that's about all you really want to see. The fights are greatly improved from the last film. While the first fight with the thugs still mostly consists of him throwing the guys around, the later zoanoid fights are much stronger. The suits have been improved since the first film, giving them greater range of movement. The stuntman inside the Guyver suit uses martial arts and the fights are just all around dynamic with lots of blood gushing out. The transformation scenes are much briefer and just all around look better.

Unfortunately, the dialogue, script, and acting are only better because they were so horrible the last time around. Hayter is giving it his all, but his attempts at looking conflicted primarily come off as blank stares. He shines much better when he's voicing Sean from inside the suit, because he's clearly a stronger voice actor than screen actor. Kathy Christopherson deploys a whiny voice for most of her delivery, making her annoying when her character is otherwise a decent female lead. It also lacks any true emotional weight when it's revealed that Cori's father is also a zoanoid. And seeing as how he's killed off, the story doesn't really try to deal with it either. The most interesting thing they probably did with the movie was making the end fight be between Sean and a zoanoid/guyver hybrid. The design, at least, looks pretty great, and they seem more appropriately matched as opponents.

But the direction is where this movie really suffers. It is a little over two hours long, and should really only be an hour and a half. The extra length is due to poor direction choices, like lingering on the pulsing guyver nodules on Sean's neck for far too long, or watching him fake drive a truck on the way to rescue Cori. If you went through and did a cleaner edit of this film, you'd end up with something much more dynamic and sleeker.

But perhaps I am being a bit harsh. Noel? Jak? What say you?



Noel

Damn. After the first film failed to live up to my nostalgic embrace of its memory, I had hopes that Guyver 2 would more than make up for it. But, damn. To be fair, it is a significantly stronger film than the first, but not being as bad as the one before doesn't mean this one isn't bad, too.

In terms of the direction, on a purely technical level, Steve Wang deserves massive props for how far he came in just three years. He only made one other film between the Guyver flicks, Kung Fu Rascals, which is the silly thing playing on Sean's tv just after the opening sequence. It was an entirely independent work where he and his friends went out to a park with camera equipment and home-made special effects and just experimented and had fun, and the lessons he learned through that experience are apparent. His camera work is much crisper and more dynamic, creating a nice flow to every scene, and the action sequences are especially fantastic as the camera and editing are fast, but never frenetic, often moving with each blow of the battle so as to keep everything nice and clear. It's definitely an emulation of the choreography of Hong Kong cinema, which was building a strong cult following on our shores at the time, but it's a solid emulation that shows genuine understanding of the technique.

Where I think the film largely fails is the script, which Steve Wang deserves just as much blame for as he does props for the direction. Sure, the screenplay is credited to Nathan Long, but Long was working off a story from Wang (note how I'm avoiding any Long Wang puns - you're welcome), and Wang not only supervised the development of the script, but has gone on to collaborate with Long again on subsequent works (while I really like Wang's Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, Long was head writer of the show and the scripting is just as stiff there). Obviously, Wang didn't have a problem with how the script turned out, and that's a glaring oversight on his part.

The central story, while kinda weak as far as sequels go, isn't my main problem so much as it is the construction. Sean is our hero, but as with the first film, he's very inactive, often just standing around until the story throws something at him. He suspects someone at the dig is working for Kronos, but instead of coming up with a way to root them out, he just glares at people a lot until he's eventually attacked. He chooses to seek out the cave, yes, but all he adds to the dig are a few names, as it's the ship that finally reveals itself with the crack in the wall, and nothing that's found on board is really changed by him being there. Seriously, other than having to fight off the enemy at the end, there is nothing about this film that would have played out differently had Sean not been there. The dig would have gone on and eventually uncovered the ship. Kronos would have bided their time before revealing themselves. Government spy Atkins would have just kept watching everything. If you then change it so that two Guyver units are found and Cori dons one of them for the 3rd act fight, things still play out largely the same, even with the twist and final fate of her father. Who's death, yeah, is surprisingly muted given how much time they spend building up to it after his reveal.

But no, we have to keep Sean in there, and staple on a weak theme of self discovery as he sets out to uncover his place in the world, only to come to the conclusion that it's up to himself to define what he wants to be. Which is fine, but there's no reason he couldn't already be there. There's the struggle with killing, but he never hesitates to viciously slaughter his foes. Then there's a BS backstory about the Guyvers being a failure just so he has something to overcome. And I hate the opening sequence, which tries to paint Sean as an American superhero in a glaringly obvious imitation of Batman and Punisher. Sean leaving behind the laser-etched calling card of "Guyver" on the wall is awful and makes no sense, and if they really wanted to go the dark vigilante route, they should have stuck to the city and actually played it out instead of sending Sean into the woods and never mentioning it again. I mean, seriously, when he finally utters the word "Guyver", why does nobody mention the vigilante killings that have been in the news? Why doesn't Atkins confront him on it while he's in the middle of confronting Sean over everything else? What point did that opening sequence ultimately serve?

Atkins, though, is my favorite part of the film. He's just as clumsily written as everyone, but Christopher Michael plays him with the great energy of a dedicated agent who gets the job done despite being fully aware that he's surrounded by monsters that could rip him limb from limb at a moment's notice. Sure, his fight scene with the female zoanoid is a painful throwback to the comical warehouse chase/battle from the first film (and the "Bitch." tag is unnecessary), but he still sells the weak one-liners of the script better than anyone else, and I love when Sean says "Protect the girl!" and Atkins looks at the approaching, bullet-proof monster and says "Who's gonna protect me?" But he still does, and still fights the good fight against overwhelming odds, and I'm glad that he survives at the end. I also like his devout belief that everything will be better in government hands running up against Sean's knowledge that weapons like the Guyver would be misused, no matter who ends up with them.



Aside from Atkins, the acting is pretty flat. All of the secondary parts are forgettable. Once the big bad reveals himself, I just wanted him to jump into his creature form quicker because his human actor has the charisma of a lima bean. Kathy Christopherson isn't bad as Cori, but Angie's right about her squeaky voice being an annoyance, and Cori is kind of a jerk in the way she keeps cutting Sean down over what's in the cave. And as for David Hayter... I have to admit that, due to this film coming out around the same time V.R. Troopers was on the air, I went for several years thinking he and Brad Hawkins were one and the same. In retrospect, Hawkins is significantly beefier than the long and lean Hayter, but they have a similar striking look with the strong cheekbones and piercing eyes. Sadly, they also have the same lacking level of charisma, as Hayter's primary display of emotion is going from a flat look to a comical sneer face that made me laugh a few times. He does nail the voice, and I have much love for the man as a writer (his draft of Watchmen continues to be my favorite version of that story), but the world was not robbed by his on-screen performances being few and far between.

To get back to positives, I'm impressed by the production values Wang pulled off despite this entry being made for significantly less than the first film (the budget of this was, seriously, only $900,000). There are some cost-saving aspects of the creature designs in that we not only have the Lisker suit from the first back in full, but other costumes have been reused with different heads (Cori's dad has the same body as the elephant nosed Russian, the bug with ridiculously long pinkies was one of the lab creatures), and all of the monster suits - including the "Max's transformation" head - are recycled during the flashbacks as ancient zoanoids. But just by replacing the heads with ones that are now fully expressive with animatronics that let their eyes move and their mouths open and close with the dialogue instantly sells the creatures better than what we got the first time around. The redesign of the Guyver suit is spectacular - broader at the shoulders, heavier "boots", light blue coloring, all more true to the manga look - and the main villain monster is amazing in both creature form and Guyvered creature form, and even had to do some nice little bits of acting in both, which were pulled off well. In addition to the creatures, there's also the great cave set with the moving wall of the spaceship, the organic spaceship interiors, and the lovely model work during the flashback chronicling the history of the creation of both zoanoids and the Guyver unit. And there's also some choice uses of CGI in the film. A few morphing effects don't work, but the ship rising out of the ground at the end looks nice, and I absolutely love the two moments of Sean summoning his armor while in motion, one while running through the woods, the other after having just leapt off a cliff.

But the high-points of the film just aren't enough to make up for a largely flat cast and a very weak script that the direction, no matter how striking the camerawork, was able to overcome. The Guyver has always been a blip of undeserved success for what's ultimately been a cheep bit of tween boy silliness on both sides of the pond, and it says a lot that when the audience who embraced both this and the works of Rob Liefeld ultimately turned on Rob, they left The Guyver floundering as well. It only worked because it came out at the right time to run into the right group of people, but that time passed and those people moved on. Both films are a perfect adaptation of the manga and anime, not in that they made it into something good, but that they perfectly captured everything that made the series both momentarily interesting, but ultimately disposable and forgettable. They didn't elevate the material, so ultimately sank after cresting that passing wave.

A few extra thoughts:

• The music is essentially the same score as the first film, and just as uneven a mix of Terminator ripoff and random keyboard pounding. It has a few nice swells during action scenes, though.
• Favorite exchange: "You go get help, I'll handle the bear!" "Right...... Wait, he'll handle the bear!?"

Jak

"What's a Guyver?"

That was the question I've had no answer to since I was told what movie we were doing this month, though it had really been around for me much longer than that. I vaguely remembered hearing about these movies a long time ago when I was a teenager as one of those weird things the Sci-Fi Channel would advertise that I tuned out while waiting for MST3K or Star Trek or whatever to return. Back then, it was probably closer to "What's a Guyver? Eh, who cares, when's my show coming back on?" Now, it seemed, I cared, and I'd be finding out soon. I made a point not to look anything up about Guyvers and Guyver-related things, not even February's Monthly Midnight Movie Exchange on the first Guyver movie, because I was curious how well this movie would stand on its own. What better way to find out than to go into it genuinely ignorant?

As it turns out, the previous movie's plot was summed up very neatly in a couple of lines right before the introductory sequence, a sequence bathed in Kool-Aid blood, some very cliche villains, and a truly unbelievable amount of slow motion. The uneven acting showcased throughout the rest of the film is established in this sequence as well. The head villain starts it off with some fine hamming followed soon by his gang shooting at the Guyver, all looking perfectly bored. I imagined the director saying, "Ok, everyone, here's where we point our guns in this direction. Ok, good, now you pull the triggers. Ok, cut, great, next scene." There's some serious cheese in how the title appears, too. "Oh, okay, so this is that kind of movie," I thought.



The story grabbed my interest early on, which surprised me because most monster fight movies I've watched use the plot as a simple vehicle to get on to the next fight. It's unfortunate that I found it really difficult to stay focused through the entire two hours because, like the acting, the pacing was all over the place. Scenes just end abruptly in the middle of conversations, fooling me more than once into thinking we were going into a flashback. On the other side of the spectrum are the travel montages and dream sequences that all went on at least three times longer than they needed to. I found myself shouting "Okay, jeez, I get it!" at the screen after sitting through more than a minute of David Hayter's pulsing neck nips juxtaposed with the collapsing walls of the dig. The endless shots of the sets and reactions when the ship was uncovered reminded me of watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which is never a good thing. Then there's the Gratuitous Jeep, a twenty-three second long shot of a Jeep falling off a cliff and exploding. Nobody's even inside of it, and it served no further purpose to the narrative. "This movie needs an exploding car!" This is why this movie is two hours.

The fight scenes were a mixed bag. Every impressive martial arts move seemed to be followed by an impossible segment of floaty nonsense that didn't even attempt to convey an illusion of impact. At times, the creatures were just standing there staring at each other. I couldn't stop laughing at the grey monster who kept beating his chest for no reason. I liked it so much that I went back and counted how many times he did it: nineteen times in two fights. At some point in the movie, I thought "You know, this doesn't look bad for an 80's flick." Later, I found out it was made in 1994. Oh.

As the scenes piled up, I realized that I've thought "Oh, okay, so this is that kind of movie" on no less than five occasions. By the time the main villain was chewing up the scenery with stock maniacal laughter and delivering the line "I love my job" straight to the camera, I was completely confused because I couldn't figure out how self-aware this film was. It felt like three or four different people with very different visions wrote scripts and cobbled them together. This is a movie that tries to analyze a man's struggle to determine his destiny. This is also a movie where "Bitch." is apparently acceptable as a one liner. So in learning the answer to "What's a Guyver?", I'm left with a new question that I may never know the answer to: "What's a Guyver 2?"



Angie

When we reviewed the first film, I promised the sequel would be better. I wasn't wrong, but I think all three of us have highlighted here that I may have also oversold it. Memories can be pretty good at lying to you sometimes, and it's possible I may have been crushing on Hayter a little too much the first time I watched this film. At least, that's the best excuse I've got in terms of why I remembered enjoying this movie before.

Noel does point out two of the funniest lines in the film, which did in fact make me laugh out loud. Unfortunately, they were more a case of the broken clock being right twice a day as much of the rest of the humor didn't come off as well. Christopher Michael did certainly make Atkins a more interesting character than the rest, but once again, I think that had more to do with one competent actor being surrounded by only passable ones.

Oh, and those chest beating moments Jak mentions? He left off the part where they used something akin to a cat wailing as the monster's cry every time he beats his chest. I kept looking around to make sure my cats weren't fighting with each other every time I heard it, because it just sounded so strange and out of place with what I was seeing on screen. I appreciate their efforts to give the monsters some kind of personality and life, but most of them came off just as silly as that.

Overall, I just can't recommend this series. Noel is right that these are a relic of their specific time period, and have not aged well at all. There are some moments that may be enjoyable in a "so bad it's good" kind of way, but you may get too bored with the films before you reach those scenes.


We'll be back on the 1st of May with a pick from Noel: Gunhed (1989)

Ninja III: The Domination (1984)... Tony's Pick for March

Tony

The Power of Kosugi compels you!

I think most of us would agree that what keeps William Friedkin's 1973 film The Exorcist from being a classic is its baffling lack of Ninjas. Thankfully for us, director Sam Firstenberg would rectify that a decade later with our March entry in the Monthly Midnight Movie Exchange: Ninja III: The Domination.

Ninja... III?

Yep. III. Not III as in the third film of an interconnected trilogy, but III as in the third Ninja film released by Cannon that featured Sho Kosugi, but are otherwise unrelated.

Like its predecessors, Ninja III was in heavy rotation on HBO when I was growing up. I naturally loved its senseless violence, but for me, Ninja III was really all about the lovely Lucinda Dickey. Best know for her role in the breakdancing duology Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (the latter helmed by Revenge of the Ninja and Domination director Sam Firstenberg), Dickey experienced a short-lived brush with almost-fame before retiring from acting in 1990 to raise her two daughters.

With that enlightening bit of history out of the way, it's time to put on our leotards and crack open the V8 juice (this will make sense later, I promise) as we Ninja for the third and final(?) time!

Ninja III: The Description

A Ninja assassin (David Chung), for reasons never specified, shows up at a country club and murders a scientist, his wife, several body guards, and a couple of golf course security officers. This turns out to be a mere warm up for our naughty Ninja, because when the police arrive, the real killing begins. After taking out police motorcycles, cars, and even a helicopter, the assassin is cornered and riddled with bullets. This only seems to piss him off, though, and he kills even more policemen before once again being filled with lead. Finally, he uses his ninja skills to disappear, leaving the surviving cops too stunned to initiate an effective search of the surrounding area.

Mortally wounded, the Ninja manages to find a young telephone line technician named Christie (Lucinda Dickey) working on a nearby pole, and gives her his sword before dying. Soon, Christie - who also works part-time as an aerobics instructor (because it was the 80s, and all women were required by law to be part-time aerobics instructors) - begins to experience strange visions of the fateful events at the golf course. Christie is ultimately compelled to go to the secret cave where the Ninja assassin kept his weapons, don his uniform, and begin taking out the cops who were responsible for his death, one by one. This includes the young and extremely hairy Billy Secord (Jordan Bennett), a stalker officer who takes a special interest in Christie. The two eventually fall in love and share the only bit of V8 juice-infused foreplay in the recorded history of sex.

When science fails to answer Christie's questions about what's happening to her, she and Billy seek the help of a Japanese mystic (James Hong). There they learn that Christie is possessed by the spirit of the evil Ninja. Frightened and unable to exorcise the spirit from Christie's body, the old man tells them that “Only a Ninja can kill a Ninja.” This ups the ante from Revenge of the Ninja where “Only a Ninja can stop a Ninja.” Luckily, there just so happens to be one heading their way who has a score to settle with this particular evil Ninja.

When Yamada (Sho Kosugi) reaches these shores, he follows the trail of dead bodies, eventually confronting Christie, who he believes to be the evil Ninja. The two battle, but her true identity is revealed when Yamada removes her mask. When he learns Christie's story, Yamada vows to help her and proceeds to steal the evil Ninja's remarkably well preserved and mysteriously not yet cremated body from the morgue. He then takes it to a mountain temple... in Los Angles, California. There, Yamada manages to coax the evil Ninja's spirit out of Christie and back into its own body. Whole again, the evil Ninja and Yamada square off while Christie and Billy look on. Finally, while the evil Ninja is distracted, Christie retrieves his discarded sword and stabs him with it. Totally ignoring the fact that the old man said that “Only a Ninja can kill a Ninja,” the evil Ninja dies.


Ninja III: The Dissertation

The films that make up the “Ninja trilogy” are really nothing more than violent, R-rated comic book movies where the titular characters are mythologized and held up as something akin to modern demigods. Viewed in that context, it makes it easier to swallow the total absurdity of something like the evil Ninja getting shot fifty times at point blank range and shaking it off like they're mosquito bites. In particular, since Domination outright introduces a supernatural element from the start, anything goes as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't keep it from all being a bit silly, but it never insults our intelligence, because it flat out tells us early on that this isn't supposed to be realistic.

The supernatural aspect isn't the only thing that sets Domination apart from its predecessors. While the action in Enter the Ninja mostly took place in a remote village in the Philippines, and the tone of Revenge of the Ninja was often as stoic as its hero, Domination is really a Ninja movie for the MTV generation, with a pop culture sensibility largely absent from the first two films. This, if you'll pardon the pun, is a double-edged sword, because while the production values take a noticeable uptick here, this movie is very, very 80s. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just that every few minutes, some pop culture artifact pulls you out of the moment and reminds you that you're watching a movie. It's funny how easy it is for me to suspend disbelief and accept something as outlandish as Ninja possession, only to have the illusion shattered by the sight of an arcade game.

The other big difference is focus. In Enter, our hero is an American Ninja traveling the world in search of a purpose. In Revenge, he's a Japanese man who leaves his home to escape the violence of his past only to find that violence is a universal problem. Here, the hero is actually a heroine. Christie is a normal L.A. Girl - tough and capable, no bimbo or damsel in distress - pulled into a deadly and frightening situation beyond her experience and out of her control. She sort of reminds me of Sarah Conner in the first Terminator film. Dickey is no Meryl Streep, but she manages to come across as tough and vulnerable, a difficult trick for even the best actresses to pull off convincingly. English is also her first language, a first for the protagonists in this series.

Like the previous two films, Domination opens with a bloody and exciting action set piece. The 1 Ninja vs. 50 cops opener is about as good a whiz-bang bit of exploitation entertainment as I've ever seen. The middle portion of the film takes on a horror movie vibe as the possessed Christie carries out a series of gruesome assassinations against the various cops who killed the evil Ninja. It's not until about the half way mark, when the criminally under-used Sho Kosugi shows up, that we get our first true Ninja on Ninja action. The finale throws in everything but the kitchen sink as the evil Ninja somehow turns the temple's monks into an army of Kung-Fu zombies. It's fun, but it still can't touch the sheer awesomeness of Revenge's more straightforward showdown.

The bottom line

Look, I realize this film isn't art. It's not particularly well made, nor especially well acted, and it's certainly not well written. This is unapologetic, grindhouse-style entertainment for the home video/pay cable generation. I loved every blood-soaked minute of it.

A few Ninja notes

Ninja III: The Domination recycles parts of the score for Revenge of the Ninja, particularly during the final fight scenes and the end credits.

The arcade game Christie has in her loft is called Bouncer. I did a little research and it turns out that, due to high costs, Bouncer was never mass produced and thus never released to the public. For all the Bouncer information you'll ever need, please visit this page.


Angie

It's pretty common for movie series to go downhill as they progress, and even more common for the last in a series to be a stinker. That's usually how it ends up being last - no one wants to spend money continuing a franchise that has ruined itself. But this "franchise" is barely one at all. I'm actually surprised they put the "III" in the title, because, once again, we have absolutely no connection here to the previous entries. Though I suppose, stylistically, this one does have some things in common with the previous entry.

Besides the appearance of Kosugi (who is really just a supporting character in this one), the movie also contains some of those laughably bad moments that happened frequently in the previous entry. I once again found myself laughing at the unintentional goofiness that occurs during the opening fight sequence. I laughed even harder once the cheesy 80s soundtrack kicked in, which seemed to contain songs written specifically for the film. A Pat Benatar wannabe sings as we are introduced to Christie for the first time. For whatever reason, when she turned off her ultra-large boombox that the song was supposedly playing from, I guffawed. Yes, this is certainly a silly, silly movie.

Unfortunately, the further the film went on, I found myself less amused and a little more bored. Like hearing a series of puns relentlessly, the cheesiness of the film goes from funny to just tedious. It doesn't help that Officer Fuzzball is rewarded for his stalking by Christie suddenly deciding that he isn't creepy, she really does like him. The V8 seduction is a real head scratcher. This is, of course, another prime 80s stamp, a woman who is such a health nut that she won't drink coffee or soda, she only drinks V8. But to use the drink, wouldn't they have to gain permission? And if so, who approved the use of it as a seduction tool? I tend to be grossed out by the combination of food and sex in general, but this is particularly messed up as it almost looks like blood that he's licking off her body. Yuck.


The underlying story of the film is one that could have been interesting and entertaining if it had been handled well. A supernatural evil spirit taking over the body of someone else to get revenge is a good concept. Since the ninja first saw Christie as she was scaling a telephone pole for work, using almost the same exact move he had just used to scale a tree earlier, she was an obvious choice. But the execution just doesn't work. Christie sees one of the cops who attacked the ninja, she gets possessed, she kills the cop in some gruesome way, she comes home and doesn't remember what happened. Rinse and repeat. And her attempts to deal with what is happening to her mostly seem to be to come home and dance it out of her system.

The exorcist inspired scene comes off particularly bad, with her pale white makeup and the way she spins around and around inside the restraints they're holding her in. Once again, in the right framework, this could be creepy, but here it just comes off silly. The same can be said for the moment in her apartment when the spirits start whispering at her - they sound more like the goblins from Labyrinth than anything truly spooky.

Even when Kosugi finally gets to be part of the action, it's not that thrilling. It seemed to me like the choreography of the fights in this film are pretty lacking, not really giving him much of a chance to show off his strengths. Whether he was fighting the possessed Christie, the zombie monks, or finally the evil ninja at the end, it all just feels uninspired to me. I can see why they chose to have Christie deliver the final blow to the evil ninja, as it is a proper way to finish her story arc, but it does make Kosugi's character seem mostly useless. And apparently, Christie and Billy certainly think of him that way, because they don't bother to help him out of the sinkhole he's fallen into or tell him thanks in anyway. They just leave off into the sunset together.

So while I found something of value in the other two entries in this series, despite their faults, I simply can't recommend this one. The bad outnumbers the good too much for me. If you're a lover of 80s cheese, you may be able to get more out of it, but for anyone else, I think you're better off just passing this one by. Check out the earlier films for something a little more fun.


Noel

And here's where I surprise no one everyone by saying I quite enjoy this film.

Linda Firstenberg, who I'd never seen before, make for a very compelling lead, and a fresh face for the Ninja "franchise". In fights, her moves have more the measured grace of a dancer than they do the force of a martial artist, but her physical athleticism can't be denied, especially every time you get a look at her magnificently developed arms and shoulders. There's an everyday vulnerability to go with the strength, a very Heather Langenkamp quality, but I like how the film makes sure to show us how well she can handle herself in everyday situations, so the threat is significantly stronger when she has to go up against forces quite far from the everyday. It's never clearly expressed if the poltergeist sequences in her apartment are actually happening or just in her head, but I love the moment when she decides not to give in, and starts fighting back the doors that are flying open and grounding objects sailing into the air. And in the best bit of the movie, she actually tries to combat the demonic forces with the power of 80s pop music and dancing. It's good stuff, and the awkward V8 sex scene (which mostly doesn't work because of the horrid actor in Billy's role) is more than made up for by sequences like the wild exorcism or the steely glint in her suddenly eye-linered eyes as she dons the ninja gear. My only major issue with her is that she's largely denied a climax. Instead of it being all about Christie struggling to hold onto herself while clashing swords with another ninja, she only gets a few swipes at Sho before the evil ninja is back in its own body and she's just watching on the sidelines while Sho steals the... wait for it... show. Sure, she gets a poke in with the sword, but that's not what killed the ninja. It kept fighting for another five minutes, only losing the day when Sho buried a knife in its skull.

Speaking of Sho, I was surprised he didn't show up until almost half way through the film, but I like the mystery of his role, that we don't know if he's a friend or foe until quite late into things as he's always lingering on the periphery, slowly putting the pieces together of how the ninja ended up possessing Christie. Sure, he completely hogs the spotlight in the climax, but at least he does so in grand fashion, as the battle between he and the ghost ninja is great. I especially love the moment when the monks in the temple are possessed and go after Sho, and he does everything he can to not hurt his friends before being forced to disarm them. It's a silly moment on paper, but very well played. And I like little moments of humor from Sho, like the bonking together of the nurses' heads, or the bit with the darts in the police car. Sho has really grown into a fine cinematic presence over the course of these three films, so I'm not surprised he left an impression on fans back in the day. My only issue is, if you want to give Sho an eyepatch, just give Sho an eyepatch. Don't over-think it by strapping that jar lid to his face.

I'd disagree that the narrative isn't straightforward, Tony. It's crazy as hell, and doesn't follow the more typical "hero's journey" structures of the first two, but it's still pretty easy to follow. A ninja assassin is gunned down by cops, passes into the body of a young woman, then hijacks her body at night to get revenge on those cops, even as the woman he's possessing starts falling in love with one. That's actually a great hook, and I quite enjoy it. My only problems with the story are two fold. First, they needed to play up the cops more as innocent victims being punished for just doing their jobs. For the first two kills, we get a shlub in a wife beater cussing at the ninja from across a pool table, and a dude sleazing into a hot tub with a pair of call girls. It's almost as though the producers wanted us to enjoy the sight of these guys being killed, but I think that robs the story of the horror it needs at what Christie is being forced to do. It's not until we get to the attack at the police funeral that they try to play her victims up as honorable folk, and by then, it's a bit too little, too late. The second problem, which I've already mentioned, is Jordan Bennett as Billy Secord. His "romantic" lead does cross the line into stalker territory as he keeps refusing to take no for an answer, and if that's the route you want to go, you need to play it very carefully, giving him a bumbling, hapless charm along the lines someone like Brian Benben can deliver. Jordan Bennett is no Brian Benben, and his attempts at charm comes off aggravating and unappealing, and that more than the pouring of V8 made the sudden sex scene so completely unbelievable. Also, dude, wow. That is some serious back hair.


In terms of filmmaking, I found this totally on par with Firstenberg's direction of the second film, mixing solid choreography and editing with the handheld television camera on a zoom lens cinematography. It's not my favorite type of filmmaking, but it's capably handled, and he does just as well with the wild poltergeist sequences (love the goofy voices snarling in Japanese on the soundtrack, and the laser and smoke effects from the arcade machine) as he does the ninja action. The highlight definitely is that opening sequence, where an assassination on a golf course turns into a bloody chase as this one ninja takes out half the police department before they empty hundreds of rounds into him... and then he keeps fighting! It does have its implausible moments, like when he lifts up the golf cart or wraps an iron around his wrist, but given the story that follows, I'm willing to let it slide. And when the ninja gets his body back in the climax, I love the execution of how it moves with a corpse-like stiffness and unnaturally spins around when it's hit. There's a lot of little details like that which impress me, and unlike Revenge of the Ninja, this film embraces its sillier moments and even goes for a few legitimate laughs.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this final chapter in the Ninja sequence. It's silly as hell, but played it just right and kept me engrossed and entertained from the bright blue polo shirt of scene one to the heroic shot of Kosugi atop a cliff as we enter the credits. A fun time was definitely had, and thanks again, Tony, for finally getting me to check out these three essential installments of 80s cinema.

A few extra thoughts:

• It's always a delight when James Hong shows up in a film, and despite not being Japanese (which I blame the producers for, not him), he's a welcome presence as the "exorcist", and slips some good chuckles beneath the serious veneer of his performance.
• Didn't realize until now that James R. Silke, who wrote both this and Revenge of the Ninja, is the pinup and comic book artist Jim Silke who was briefly big in the 90s. I read his scifi swashbuckler series Rascals in Paradise back in the day and remember it being a fun, if light and old-school cheesecake, book.

Tony

If 80s cartoons taught me anything - besides consumerism - it's that there's a lesson to be learned in everything we do. Well, kids, in today's episode, Tony learned that Ninjas aren't for everyone.

As popular as Ninjas became in the 80s, they never did graduate to the Hollywood A-list, and the likes of Sho Kosugi never got to walk the red carpet, unless that carpet was covered in fake blood. Like their “Chopsocky” Kung-Fu predecessors in the 70s, the cinematic Ninjas of the 80s were B-movie heroes. The principle differences between the two were format and venue. While Kung-Fu films thrived in the halcyon days of the grindhouse, the outbreak of Ninjamania coincided with the mainstreaming of home video and pay cable. This meant that you could enjoy your exploitation from the comfort of your living room, and didn't have to wonder if the guy three seats over was masturbating under his raincoat. Unless you lived in my house, where we referred that man as “Dad”. By the way, if you should ever find your self watching a movie at my Dad's house, here's a little tip: if he asks if you want butter on your popcorn, say “No”.

Angie, I really appreciate how open minded you've been throughout this so-called “Ninja Trilogy”. I know these types of films aren't exactly your thing, but you made an honest effort to find some pros hidden amongst the many cons. I can certainly understand why Domination was your least favorite of the three. I think its inclusion of pop culture was a bit like ordering extra cheese on a deluxe cheese pizza. Unless you have a great affinity for both Ninja exploitation and 80s pop culture, it would be a bit overwhelming. One area where we did find some common ground was with the fight choreography. I also felt it was a bit sloppy and uninspired here, lacking the skill and elan of Revenge of the Ninja. Another thing we agree on was that the horror element didn't quite work. Even though Ninja and horror make for an odd genre mash-up, I actually love the possession concept. The problem is that the execution was a bit lacking. What does it say when the scariest moment in the movie was the V8-infused sex scene between Christie and Officer Chia Pet?

Noel, I sort of had a feeling you would like this one. From the inclusion of a female protagonist to the horror elements, it seemed right in your wheelhouse. The comparison of Lucinda Dickey to Heather Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street was spot on. Like Langenkamp, Dickey isn't a great actress, but she did balance strength with vulnerability in a way that was crucial for any successful “final girl” in a horror film. Great job picking up on the evil Ninja moving with a rigor mortis-stiffened gait in the finale, too. All these many viewings and I've never noticed that before. That's what makes you Noel.

And with that, we bring the curtain down on the “Ninja Trilogy”. In spite of our mixed reactions, I do hope our readers seek these films out. They may not be high art, but I believe that Ninjamania is a genuine bit of pop cultural history worth exploring.


We'll be back on the 1st of April with a pick from Angie: The Guyver 2: Dark Hero (1994)

The Guyver (1991)... Noel's Pick for February

Noel

"You can't kill me. I've been rejected by death."

The manga series Bio-Booster Armor Guyver first saw print in 1985, and still retains enough popularity that it continues running to this day. In the states, it became this mini cult boom success story in the early 90s as the comics and OVAs finally reached our shores, along with a pair of live-action, American produced films. Surprisingly, these films were produced a year before the first OVA hit video over here, and two years before the first issue of the comic, meaning it had to launch the property to an American audience instead of building on a pre-existing fandom. And it worked, as a following was formed around the kid in an iconically designed suit of alien armor, and I was totally swept up in it, with notebooks filled with doodles of what various other heroes and creatures might look like with the same suit of form-fitting armor.

The boom ended up fading within a few years, with American editions of the comics breaking off after a dozen volumes, leaving much of the run from the late 90s to today unavailable in official translations. The videos also failed to catch on in the era of dvd, and a more recent anime tv series came and went without creating much of a blip. I went back and re-read the first arc of the manga in prep for this piece, and I think I know why it didn't stick...

It's not that good.

It's not. The Guyver itself is impressively drawn and designed, but the rest of the artwork is mediocre and none of the monsters he fights are memorable. The plot is a very basic Kamen Rider knockoff, with him fighting one monster after another while struggling with his own humanity. It looks neat and there's a lot of violence, so I can see why tween boys quickly latched onto it in the peak Rob Liefeld years, but it doesn't have anything beyond that to pull in older readers or keep its followers interested as they grow out of it.

As for the film... well, it's not that good, either.

The central plot is a loose adaptation of the opening manga arc, with the villain side of things being the most faithful. The Cronos Corporation has discovered that humans were bio-engineered by aliens in ancient times, but instead of just being menial slaves, we're actually organic weapons, and small tweaks to our DNA can trigger us into monstrous, super-powered transformations. Zoanoids, as such lycanthropic beings are now know, have largely lurked in the shadows, but Cronos, under the leadership of Fulton Balcus, has started triggering and building a private army. They've also discovered a Guyver unit, a suit of bio-organic armor that the aliens used to keep their creations in line. Before the suit can be activated, a scientist makes off with it.

In the comic, the Guyver falls into the hands of a teenager who has to juggle his involvement in this underground war with his friends and life at school. Here, we get some dude named Sean Barker, who lacks any form of backstory or character arc (there's some weak setup of him needing to control his temper, but it's never explored any further), and who's about as bland and forgettable as a white-painted fence post. Thankfully, he spends half his screen time replaced by a stunt-man in the Guyver suit, but you can tell the producers knew they had a dud of a lead on their hands as he not only doesn't get first billing, but is pushed down to third, beneath supporting player Mark Hamill and love interest/distressed damsel Vivian Wu, both of whom were more recognizable names at the time. Not only that, but Hamill is also featured on the poster as wearing the Guyver armor, despite him never once doing so throughout the story.

The plot is a randomly constructed mess of cliches and coincidence. It hits the manga beats: the unit is stolen, Zoanoids are revealed, the hero gets the suit, someone close to him is kidnapped, he loses a fight where his control sphere is ripped out and he seemingly dies, then he's reborn as we learn the backstory and he fights the final boss. It's all fine, if basic stuff, but they try to pad out the material in weak ways. Mizky (Wu) is suddenly the daughter of the scientist who stole the Guyver. Sean has a run in with the bully (with comical street gang) from his karate class. Instead of the unit falling into Sean's possession during the opening battle (as it does in the comic), they convolute an entire series of coincidences just to get him to the armor, then yet another string just to have him put it on.

And the worst part, I hate to say, is Mark Hamill. I love you Mark, but you're entirely tacked on. This was his "poor man's Michael Biehn" phase, where Hamill donned a moustache and tried to be all gruff and growly, this time as Max Reed, a cop on the edge who's completely dismissed by his own department over his investigation into Cronos and its monsters. Hamill does fine, but there's nothing for his character to really do except be there, hold together the other unnecessary threads the story adds, and then die tragically at the hand of Cronos' experiments in the end. I'll admit, his monster transformation is painful to watch, and props to the puppet department for keeping his anguished eyes on the dying sculpt.

Visually, there is some nice stuff to look at in this film. The directors are Steve Wang and Screaming Mad George, a pair of makeup legends from the 80s. Wang is a slick sculptor, and the Guyver suit is largely his work, with every aspect of its design from the manga brought meticulously to life. The eyes and breathing mask. The elbow blades. The head spike. The extra eyes that give it a rear view. The chest that opens and unleashes a devastating final beam. It looked great then, and still holds up well, especially the amazing transformation bits where they pull off some things with full actor stop motion and in-camera effects that most would deem impossible in the days before CG. Despite being a brick, Sean has the great rousing moment as he says, "I... am... the Guyver!" while his breath is heavy and he glistens with sweat, and the camera whips back as the pieces of the suit explode out of him and start slapping into place. It's an amazing shot.

Sadly, it's one of the few shots that earns that word. Most of the film is very lazily framed, leaving it looking bland and cheap. Wang made a name for himself in subsequent years for his flashy camera and action choreography (Kamen Rider Dragon Knight was a fantastic show that everyone should track down), but very little of it is on display here as even the battles between the Guyver and monsters come off clumsy. As for the monsters, most of them do look pretty nice, but the camera work doesn't hide their shortcomings (visible seams in the back, inarticulate mouths), so they don't really sell. When Balcus turns into a giant monster at the end, the impressive bits are undercut by the fact he's visibly being pushed around on wheels. They created great stuff, but they didn't shoot it right, so it ends up looking cheaper than it is. The only monsters that really work are Max, which I mentioned above, and Lisker, evil second in command, and I see from the credits that he's the only one created in full by Screaming Mad George. Wang and he must have been too busy with their directorial duties as some of the creature work was outsourced, and it shows.

The tone of the movie is also wildly off. The manga is a dark and violent action series, and some of that makes it here, but New Line allegedly wanted to bring it more in line with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film series that had been a big hit for them, so humor was added. Not for the heroes, no, but for the villains, as the goons are suddenly a comical bunch with a biker chick who wants to go shopping in Brazil, a fat Russian wearing a collar who snorts with his nose to indicate his enhanced sense of smell, and Jimmy Walker rapping and wisecracking before turning into a jive talking gremlin with bling and massive lips. So yeah, they try to be funny, but they go all Michael Bay with ethnic humor and nastiness. There is a legitimately funny scene where Walker's monster wanders onto a horror film where he's mistaken for the star creature and is pulled aside for a meeting with the director, but it's completely out of place, and all these antics do is lessen the threat against our hero. Michael Berryman is perfect as Lisker, and the black coat they put him in accentuates his striking and gaunt features, but it's hard to take him serious when even he's shaking his head at his goons and calling them idiots. David Gale does far better as Balcus, but most of that is him just hamming things up in the way he was known for, lacing his dictatorial zeal with a perverse glee.

This film is a mess. The story is barely stitched together from underthought cliches. The tone doesn't know if it wants to be straight or funny, and ultimately succeeds at neither. The creatures are neat but filmed in a way that hurts instead of accentuates them. The hero looks awesome, but has zero personality or character. The direction is clumsy and leaves the film looking like a straight-to-video production instead of something intended for theaters. Oh, and I haven't mentioned the music. The main theme, with synth percussion and guitar, is actually quite catchy despite being a knockoff of the Terminator theme, but the rest of the incidental music is intrusive and feels like someone randomly poking at a keyboard.

It's been about 15 years since I last watched this film or even thought about the world of The Guyver, but I saw this movie so many times during that stretch of a few years that this was like hopping on a bike, as I was quoting along to the wave of memories the film brought forth. I enjoyed watching it, and this did fire up all the cylinders of nostalgia, but it's important for people to know that something being nostalgic doesn't mean it's good. This only works for me on a personal level that not many out there would share, as The Guyver only had a brief, cult boom on our shores. It's not something where I could sit down someone today and win them over. Why? Because it's ultimately not good. I can see why I totally dug it at the age I was when it came out, but I'm no longer that age and the people who are aren't in the same environment I was at the time. This isn't the "totally awesome" era of the early 90s where Rob Liefeld reigned supreme and anime was this slick and dirty new word that mostly promised blood and boobies.

This film is a part of me and a part of my memories, and I'll definitely revisit it again and again over the years, but it's not something I can recommend. It really is crap made by people who had a lackluster property and no clue what to do with it. But maybe this is just me holding too harsh a mirror against my past delights. Tony, Angie, let me know what you think and if I'm being too hard on this childhood favorite of mine.

Note: The DVD is not the cut that appeared on video. A few incidental character bits have been added and the extreme violence which initially caught my eye as a kid has been heavily toned down.

Tony

Okay, Exchangers, get out your flannel shirts and Doc Martens and join me in the WABAC machine. We’re heading back to the early-90s!

Cracked Rear View

It’s late at night and I’m surfing through the 30-some odd channels of cable TV at my disposal, when I stumble across an oddity that stops me dead in my tracks. Coming in somewhere near the end of the first act, I watch as a kind of deranged Power Ranger, with help from a puffy looking and unkempt Luke Skywalker, battles a large Gremlin with the voice of J.J. from the 70s sitcom Good Times. Until a few days ago, I chalked that memory up to a nightmare brought on by a bad Chalupa, but Noel insists that what I saw was actually this month’s featured movie, The Guyver.

Hold my hand because I only wanna be with you... back in the present

Here we are back in good old 2013 (BTW, you should’ve seen the look on mid-90s Darius Rucker’s face when I told him that present-day Darius Rucker was a country singer. And yes, I told him not to do that Burger King commercial). Though the slacker-induced taco fog has long since lifted, my memories of that nightmare are vague, at best. Convinced Noel is pulling my tail, I load an oh-so-90s VHS copy of The Guyver into my VCR and push play...

92 minutes later

Man, Noel, you weren’t lying, were you? The Guyver is indeed a film about a deranged Power Ranger who, with the help of a not so puffy looking - yet quite unkempt - Luke Skywalker, battles a giant Gremlin with the voice of J.J. from the 70s sitcom Good Times. That’s the kind of thing you win a bar bet with.

Believe it or not, I actually went into The Guyver with moderately high hopes. After all, how do you screw up a movie about a kid who finds a symbiotic alien super suit that turns him into a kung-fu fighting hero? You don’t need a polished script, high production values or good actors to pull that off - which is good, because The Guyver doesn’t have any of those things. All you need is some catchy music and exciting fight choreography. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have those things, either. This movie should’ve worked on the same level of guilty pleasure as a Power Rangers episode, but it’s undermined by a complete lack of energy. It's a product of the most uninspired direction this side of 1 Night in Paris. Here’s a rule of thumb I like to follow: you hire guys named Screaming Mad George to DJ the noon-to-four block at a classic rock station, but you don’t hire him to co-direct a movie.

There’s some amusement to be had in the camp of it all, though. The actors playing the bad guys clearly relish their chance to ham it up, and whenever they’re on screen, it all kind of works in a B-movie sort of way. I also found their costumes and make-up somewhat impressive by low budget fright flick standards, though seriously, Walker’s Gremlin persona is one of the most overtly racist things I’ve ever seen in a movie. When the focus shifts to our charm-challenged hero, his meek would-be love interest, or the clearly bored and embarrassed Mark “Slumwalker” Hamill, things grind to a halt. Even when Sean dons the suit, as impressive as it is with its moving parts and shooting steam, it doesn’t move the energy needle much. It’s just a signal that we’re in for another boring and clumsily choreographed fight scene.

As Noel mentioned, I have the VHS version thanks to a lucky score at a local thrift store. I honestly can’t imagine why they felt it necessary to tone down the violence for the DVD cut, which is the work of co-director and should-be DJ Screaming Mad George, if my research is correct. The back of the box for my VHS copy lists the rating as PG-13, and that feels about right to me. The fighting is exaggerated and cartoonish, and while some of the creature stuff is gruesome and unpleasant, particularly during the scenes at Cronos corporation near the end, it’s all rather tame by today’s standards.

Ultimately The Guyver is a rather shoddy B-movie that breaks the first commandment of low budget action films: “Thou shalt be fun”. I’m convinced there’s a decent, if unoriginal, “superhero” flick in there somewhere, but along the way, it was lost in the folds of incompetence... along with Jimmy Walker’s dignity, Mark Hamill’s pride, and Screaming Mad George’s career.

Angie

This may be a give away for a future post, but I feel partly responsible for us viewing this film. What I mean is that I have the sequel picked for my next film, and Noel volunteered to pick the first movie before it. I'd never actually seen it before, though I had seen one video review that assured me there wasn't much value to it. I was more than willing to try to give it a fair shot, but I have to admit it was painful for me in places. I made the mistake of reclining on the sofa and had to pause the movie at one point because I could feel myself falling asleep. And that was in the middle of an action scene.

There's a moment early on when one of the cops tells Mark Hamill's character that he's wasting his time chasing Ninja Turtles, and it's clear they wanted us to make that comparison. But it doesn't hold up, not by a long shot. Well, I suppose in that they both feature creatures that are really people in suits, but honestly, I was thinking Power Rangers more often than Ninja Turtles, thanks to the cheap look most of them have. But more than anything, the Ninja Turtle films had a plot that was targeted toward children, whereas this film doesn't know who it's targeted toward.

All three leads are dreadfully uninteresting and downright painful to watch. Mark Hamill is just going through the motions, and both Vivian Wu and Jack Armstrong are terrible. The weak dialogue given to them makes it even worse, and the plot doesn't help. For example, Vivian Wu's character shows up at Sean's karate class, dressed like a prim schoolgirl, seemingly just so he can offer to take her home. Mark Hamill shows up to tell her that her father is dead, and he ends up taking her home instead. When Sean comes to her house a little while later, there are visible tears in her eyes, but instead of asking what's wrong, he gets jealous because he sees Hamill there. Sean, wouldn't you at least be concerned that the other man was hurting her? That she might not want him there? But instead, he just turns around and walks away.

When he comes back to her apartment the next day, she's dressed like a Madonna backup dancer from the 80s. I guess the death of her father has made her rebel. As the two of them do finally discuss her father's death, both actors lack any ability to convey emotion to us, so the scene just doesn't work. And Sean Barker is such a jerk that he uses this moment to put the moves on her and is then pissed when his karate instructor shows up and therefore prevents Mizky from kissing him. But we're supposed to like this guy and root for him, and want the two of them to get together in the end.

I would also like to suggest that this script was perhaps written by a six year old. Never mind what the credits say, I have proof. Some of you may know that I'm currently working with my friends on a very small independent film project. We're actually filming two scripts at once, one of which was originally written by the director at the age of six. Nearly every scene in this draft ends with one of the characters saying something to force the scene to end. "Well, let's go get you a room." "Well, we might as well go now, so let's go." This same method happens repeatedly in The Guyver. "I'll just go get us some dinner" "No, it's fine, I'll leave." "Well, we might as well go now."

As Noel mentioned, you can tell they were also trying to make this a comedy, but pretty much every single joke falls flat. The only ones even trying for it are Jimmy Walker and Spice Williams, and as such, they come off as bizarre and completely out of place. Bebop and Rocksteady these henchmen are not. David Gale and Michael Berryman are more competent as the lead villains, but once again, this weakly structured movie doesn't give them much to work with.

The action is also pretty abysmal. Apparently, wearing the Guyver suit makes you throw people a lot. Because most of the time, that's all Sean does. Gang in the alley running towards him? He throws them away, one by one. Zoanoid goons attacking him and his girl? Yup, throws them away! We get a little more of a fight later on in the climactic scene, but the choreography is still pretty uninteresting. I'm sure it's largely related to a lack of movement available when wearing those heavy suits, but it's the kind of thing that a film of this style should consider before designing them, or at least before framing the shots.

There are elements here that I think could have made a better film if handled a lot better. The creature designs have potential, but I agree with Noel in that they aren't animated enough to be taken seriously. Also? We see a few of them mid-transformation, and the middle mess never looks anything like what the final form does. Even Hamill's transformation, while fittingly unsettling, just comes off wrong as we're forced to look at it far too long.

At one point, I started imagining what this would look like as an anime, and began to realize where they went wrong. As we saw with last month's pick, Anime is such a stylized genre that trying to directly translate all the elements just doesn't work quite right here. My memory tells me all of this was treated much better in the sequel, though I guess we'll find out in a couple months if I'm correct. Oh, and don't let that ending scene fool you. Striker is nowhere to be found in that one. Fortunately.

Noel

Sorry I threw you both a stinker this month. There's no responsibility for it on your part, Angie, as this was a nostalgia trip I was planning to bring up anyways a little further down the road. So if anything, thank you for forcing us over that hump sooner.

I don't regret featuring this film on the blog, though, as this is a perfect venue for us to revisit things from our past while simultaneously sharing them with someone new. Sometimes they'll hold up (you're two for three on the Ninja films so far, Tony), and sometimes they won't. But they can still be worth sharing in the end. The Guyver is a film worth sharing. For several reasons.

1) To give appreciation for Steve Wang's growth as a filmmaker. Angie has us lined up for The Guyver 2: Dark Hero in a couple months, where he takes the reins solo, and while my memory of the story is fuzzy, the action most certainly stands out in my mind as being leaps and bounds above what we see in this initial outing. At some point down the road, I also promise to bring up Kung Fu Rascals, a transitional film between the Guyver flicks, where he took his paycheck from the first and made an indie action flick in his back yard starring himself and some friends, to both have some fun, and experiment and cut his teeth on stylish choreography and camera work. I don't know if he just hadn't worked out that style in time for The Guyver, or if there were too many production limitations for his ideas to shine, but I promise you all that he does make up for the constant throwing we get here in place of actual martial arts.

2) As a warts and all study of male tween tastes of the early 90s. Remember, Rob Liefeld wasn't just some niche fad. His comics sold huge and he was a pop culture icon who briefly overshadowed even Stan "The Man" Lee. His stuff was ugly and crude, but conveyed everything 90s kids found awesomadical. Bio-Booster Armor Guyver pushed all the same buttons, as a teenage boy they could all identify with was given super armor that allowed him to crush, break, and slice to death massive monstrosities of increasingly grotesque design. It didn't matter if it was stupid or poorly drawn, it tied straight into their id of power fantasties with a dash of nastiness the kids felt they were getting away with just by reading such things.

The movie, at least the version Tony saw, still retained a lot of this, as we see the Guyver literally rip creatures limb from limb, slash their throats under raining geysers of blood, and rip open his own chest for the ultimate final move of a power beam that vaporizes anything in its path. It didn't matter that what we saw was stupid or poorly made, but it was a normal guy suddenly given huge power, and instead of just saving the day, he was slaughtering the opposition! Literally! This sounds gruesome and juvenile, but this was an era where kids getting easy access to violent entertainment was still fresh and new. Cable TV was settling in, with uncensored movie channels kids could explore behind their parents' backs. Video games were heading down the increasingly gory road that was just about to culminate in Doom and Mortal Kombat. Comic books were in the post-Alan Moore and Frank Miller era where everyone was dark and broken and increasingly uncaring if the villains lived to face justice, and the artists at Marvel were just about to break away and form Image.

I'm not saying it was an admirable time in hindsight, but it was a turning point, a cultural loss of childhood innocence, that's still somewhat adorable in how juvenile it's being while pouting in a demand to be seen as mature.

And at the middle of it all was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The original TMNT comic was never meant to be a big thing. It was a brief parody of the stylistic stuff Frank Miller had been doing in his Daredevil run. But it sparked something. It came at just the right time and was one of those parodies that leaves such a strong impression that it elevates into becoming its own glorious thing of beauty (see also, Airplane). So it kept going, yet it never took off until someone looked at this gritty study of teen angst and brutal ninjitsu and said, "Hey, lets clean it up for the children!" And that's what most of us knew as kids, the clean-cut Turtles of the cartoon, where the only villains who were smited were nameless drone robots, and everything was largely played for laughs. The comic book version most of us read was the Archie tie-in to the cartoon, which was every bit as family friendly. Yet accidents would happen, and when parents would buy an issue for their kids, they'd occasionally pick up the actual, original TMNT comic by mistake, and we'd suddenly see these silly characters we loved brooding in despair before using the blades of their bladed weapons to slash foot soldiers to death. And instead of electronics pouring out of the wounds, it was blood and gore because these were actual people instead of robots and, oh, how our young minds would suddenly be blown.

And then came the movie. We all went in expecting the fun and games of the cartoon, but no, the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went right back to the comics, where Raphael is a violent manic depressive, Casey Jones is a half-crazed vigilante who beats peoples' heads in with a baseball bat, and Shredder lorded over the broken minds of his cult of teenage followers. It was amazing. To this day, I hold it up as one of the best films based on a comic book.

And directly in its wake, both released in 1991, were The Guyver and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. And you can see the same problem fucking up both.

Looking at the first TMNT movie, you can see what The Guyver was initially going for, and what it should have been. Sure, the filmmaking is still shit, but if they'd at least gotten the tone right, that would be one less thing bringing it down. Instead, the studio wanted it to be funny. The first TMNT, while fondly remembered, suffered a bit because audiences found it too serious, too dark, so the edict was made that TMNT 2 would be more in line with the cartoon. It would be sillier, the villains less threatening, with all brooding tucked away and never explored again. Somewhere in all of this, the same edict was made of The Guyver. "It's based on a cartoon, so make it more cartoony!" "It's based on a comic, so make it more comical!" You know, the attitude of people who don't have a clue what they're talking about.

The Guyver was already a broken film, but this is what ultimately killed it, that the filmmakers didn't have the freedom to make the movie they wanted. And who knows, maybe that's why the direction is so flat and the makeup men outsourced most of the makeup instead of doing it themselves. Maybe they just stopped caring. The film certainly feels like a passion project for which the passion was lost.

Anyways, this was supposed to be a point about youth culture of the early 90s, but it veered off a bit. Where was I...

3) This is, officially, the very first live-action American film based on an anime or manga property. It wouldn't be the last, as it was followed by The Guyver 2, Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball: Evolution, and Speed Racer. That's not exactly the best company to find oneself in (excepting Speed Racer, which is actually pretty amazing and has strengthened its following over the years), and it goes back to Angie's point about how hard it can be to translate imagery that has the freedom of illustrations into the limitations of live-action. Speed Racer showed it can be done, but only if you have tons and tons of money and state-of-the-art, innovative effects work to throw at it. On a low-budget, you're pretty much shit out of luck (unless you still bring an energetic camera to things - see, The Guyver 2 in two months). Fist and Dragon Ball suffer the same problem as The Guyver: it's in the hands of people who don't really get it, and have nowhere near the resources needed to pull off what they do get.

It's not to say anime can't be successfully adapted - I hold out hope for the Robotech and Cowboy Bebop films - but it requires such effort and resources that nobody wants to even try given how badly past attempts have failed. Ignoring that past attempts have failed because of a lack of said resources, but still. It's hard. And it was especially hard in the days of the early 90s, where Stephen Spielberg was still two years away from showing what CG animation could be capable of.

Ultimately, The Guyver is a horrible film that never really had a chance to be anything but horrible. It was a lousy property that had no money to pull off the few things the comic got right, a studio who couldn't figure out who they wanted to target it for, a script proven by Angie to have been written by a child, and a pair of rookie filmmakers who just weren't ready for the situation they were thrown into.

It's made of fail.

But not in the good way.

[Sorry, but the only trailer we can find is a foreign dub where the film was retitled Mutronics. But it still gets the gist of the film across.]

We'll be back on the 1st of March with a pick from Tony: Ninja III: The Domination (1984)

Memories (1995)... Angie's Pick for January

Angie

I tend to enjoy surprising people by going against their expectations, and I think it's safe to say that this month's pick fits the bill. While we've so far been looking at cheesy ninja flicks, silly Japanese wrestling movies featuring giant cephalopods, and street hockey players from dysoptian futures, this month's pick is a little less wacky and a bit, dare I say, artistic? It is still, however, strongly placed in the realm of sci-fi. It's also an anime, a genre that I consumed like candy in my teens and early twenties, to the point that there are movies and series in the genre that my past self tells me I watched on my livejournal account, but I have no recollection of having seen. This anime, however, I definitely do remember, and how fitting is it that its title is Memories?

Memories is an anthology film, composed of three episodes. They were all written by Katsuhiro Otomo, best known for his Akira series. The three pieces are, however, directed by different gentlemen and, as such, their style, tone, and mood vary greatly. Like most anthology pieces, it's safe to say that you're probably going to prefer certain segments more than others, and for me, at least, Memories is no exception.

The first episode is “Magnetic Rose”, directed by Kofi Morimoto, and this is the one that stays with me the most. In 2092, a garbage collection spaceship receives an S.O.S. signal on its way back to earth and international space law requires that they heed the call. Ladies man Miguel and family man Heintz make their way onto the space station the signal is coming from in search of the person in need of help. What they find is the home of a woman haunted by her past. Once a famous opera singer about to marry her true love, she lost her voice first, and then him not long after. Devastated and unable to move on, she has filled the ship with mementos and holograms that replay a time when she was truly loved and adored by all, but most specifically by her beloved Carlo.

I believe that a lot of what happens on the ship can largely be left to the viewer's interpretation. Is it ghosts and spirits that torment Heintz by making him remember the death of his daughter, and tempting him to stay there forever by living out memories as if she was still alive? Is it Eva's ghost specifically that forces Miguel to become her Carlo? Or is it perhaps the ship, so used to catering to Eva's needs that, even after she passes away, it's issuing this distress signal in order to draw people there and continue on its purpose. Most likely, it's a mixture of both.

Regardless, this episode in the series is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. The images are perfectly surreal and creepy, putting you on edge as the mystery unravels. The operatic music is gorgeous and haunting, not only fitting because of Eva's past but also because there's something about it that perfectly fits the setting of desolate space. The acting, a cooperation between the voice actors and animators, is superb. When Heintz is tempted to stay with his daughter, then faces that she is in fact gone, forced to view her death all over again and unable to change it, your heart breaks for him.

Heintz also delivers the line that must be where the title of the anthology is pulled from: “Memories aren't an escape!” he tells Eva. Since I don't speak Japanese, I'm going purely by the English subtitles here, so I'm hoping they are accurate. I personally would amend his statement to say that memories are only a temporary escape, and that some are so painful that we should not revisit them. I think that is definitely what the short is trying to convey, anyway, and I certainly agree.

While on the surface it seems like the short ends unhappily, with Miguel stuck on the space station, Heintz free floating in space, and their two companions dead, I see some hope here. Heintz seems to have truly achieved peace with his daughter's death, and while his chances of rescue are slim, he will die without that burden on his soul.

The second episode, “Stink Bomb”, directed by Tensai Okamura, is much closer in theme and mood to the films we've been watching previously. Nobuo comes down with the flu, and after going to the doctor's office to get a shot, he returns to work at a pharmaceutical company. He's still got a bit of a fever, so his friends recommend he go snatch one of the new “fever pills” they've yet to do trials on. He does so, and not long after goes to take a nap in the break room. His coworkers start to complain of a strange smell, and then we cut to hours later where Nobuo wakes up to find everyone dead. He ends up in touch with their head office, which tells him to bring them the pills and documents, because it turns out it wasn't a fever medication, but rather a biological weapon, and no one is supposed to know about it.

The combination of Nobuo's flu and the drug have turned him into the titular stink bomb, emitting a dangerous gas that becomes worse as he becomes stressed, that knocks out everything but plant life, which instead seems to bloom beautifully. However, just explaining the plot to you doesn't really reveal to you that this is a comedic short. Nobuo's obliviousness to his condition and the people who pass out the moment they come near him are done with great comedic intent, and it gets even better when people begin shooting at him or running away in fear and he has no earthly idea why.

The mood is enhanced greatly by the short's soundtrack, a unique blend of jazz music with interesting vocal melodies. I'm not sure if the vocalist is singing in Japanese or perhaps just riffing in a unique way, but it certainly enhances the bizarre tone of the whole short.

The plot is a bit predictable and it takes the actual makers of the drug far too long to figure out that Nobuo is, in fact, the cause of the problem, but I think it's still an enjoyable, brief short.

The film wraps up with one more tale, "Cannon Fodder", directed by Otomo himself. Here we get one more completely different style of story, this time a dystopian steampunk world where an entire nation is devoted to firing the large cannons that cover the rooftops of their city. We never see the nation they are fighting, nor are they ever attacked. The influence of 1984 is evident, including the nation's slogan, “Shoot and blast with all your strength for our nation.” The story primarily follows a young boy who believes whole heartedly in the propaganda being presented by their government. He sits attentively in school, hoping to learn enough so that one day he can be the one who fires the cannon, rather than one of the lowly workers who helps load it, like his father. His mother also works in the factories that create the artillery to be fired.

This short isn't so much a story as it is a brief glimpse into a world, and I think that's why it doesn't hold my interest as well. While the detail in the backgrounds and cannons and buildings is very impressive, I'm just not particularly interested in watching a cannon being loaded then fired, which is primarily what happens here. Much praise is often given to this short for the fact that it all appears to be one take, a constant movement of the camera rather than any sharp cuts. It is very impressive, it's just not enough to grab me. I was more amused by the boy's fantasy as a future cannon firer, made to look like a child's drawings as he imagines it. It is, however, a very brief moment of the short.

The main issue I have with this film overall is that I feel like it shows you its best first, and then slowly decreases in quality as it goes on. While I would watch “Magnetic Rose” again and again, I don't know that I need to see “Stink Bomb” more than once every few years, and, quite honestly, I would probably just skip “Cannon Fodder” on repeated viewings. The DVD even provides an “Episode Selection” in the main menu that makes this rather easy to do.

The other thing I'm not so sure of is whether or not these pieces truly make a cohesive whole. They chose to title the film Memories, and as such, you would expect all three pieces to tie to that. It could easily be an alternate title for “Magnetic Rose”, but for the other two shorts, I have to reach. My guess is that it relates to “Stink Bomb” in terms of Japan's memories of the atomic bombings, especially thanks to the part the Americans play in the biological weapon's creation. For “Cannon Fodder”, perhaps it is the false memories being implanted into the nation to make them believe in the cause. In the bonus features of the disc, they interview all three directors, but the theme isn't truly discussed, so I don't know how right or wrong I am. Of course, it's really up to us to decide our own meaning. I'm curious to see if Noel and Tony find similar ones, or something completely different.

Noel

I was huge into Katsuhiro Otomo in the 90s, not just because of Akira - a scattered film that never really grabbed me, it's technical brilliance aside - but because of his segments of Robot Carnival, or Roujin Z, a wonderful screwball comedy he wrote, designed, and supervised. Even when I fell out of anime, his works would catch my eye, as I really enjoyed both Steamboy and Metropolis, and I picked up the massive six volume set of the original Akira manga, rapidly consuming it and declaring, to this day, that it's one of the greatest works of fiction ever gifted to the world, in any medium. I love his grounded designs, strong characters with chips on their shoulders, vast, sprawling worlds pieced together with an engineer's precision that even James Cameron continues to praise. His narratives aren't always the strongest, but the man sure does build fascinating societies and populate them with memorable folk. And then blew them all into gorgeous rubble.

Memories is a film I hungered to check out during the 90s, but it didn't hit DVD over here until 2004, when I was in a lul with anime. The boom of the 90s had turned into a flood by the time DVDs came around, and a medium that was once still so limited that fans could literally consume everything released in America suddenly expanded, and that was no longer possible. Many people fell out of anime fandom at the time, as realization hit that, like every other medium, only a percentage of it is actually good, and weeding the good from the bad was no longer easy, as I'd just graduated high school and was between the social groups of then and now.

So thank you, Angie, for giving me the kick I needed to finally give this film a watch.

"Magnetic Rose"

Right from the start, the meticulous animation and precise design work introduce you to an interesting group of blue-collar laborers in a job that's alien and wondrous to us, just another day on the clock to them, as they gather up space junk into clusters, salvage it for what pickings they find, then vaporize it to keep the space lanes clean. This could be played for comedy (as Tony and I know all too well), but it's grounded and straight and, most importantly, real. There's a hard science to the design of the craft and tools, and a realistic griminess to dudes who stopped caring so much about hygiene some time ago.

This atmosphere carries on into the discovery of the ghost yard with the massive, rotted rosebud of a ship at its heart, pulling anything nearby in with both a magnetic attraction and a siren song broadcast over distress channels. As the crew explores its corridors, it plays a very delicate game of bait-and-switch, lulling your whimsy with promises of exuberant fantasy, then deflating them with easy answers of holograms and a eccentric woman with riches to spare. But then the fantasy keeps coming in waves, bigger and more personal, and answers stop being easy to find until they're impossible and all you're left with are memories come alive to torment and allure the poor explorers who opened the wrong door. I like that there's an answer to it all, that the ship's computer, in its damage and decay, has gone insane, but also the implication that this is merely Heintz reaching for an answer as he barely has time to reject the fantasy before it rejects him into the frozen drift of the stars.

I credit a good chunk of the success for this short to Satoshi Kon, who wrote the script (from Otomo's story), and served as the sequence's layout artist and art director. With the success of this short, Kon was able to get his own film project off the ground, debuting Perfect Blue in 1998. It's also about the rise and fall of an idol, her story blurred in a web of reality and fantasy, both of her own and her admirers. It's a fantastic film, and so many of the twists, visual exploration, and psychological wrenching it's known for is a ripple of what started in "Magnetic Rose". With the additional films of Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika, and the tv series Paranoia Agent, Kon not only rose to prominence as one of the top names in anime, but an important voice in international cinema as a whole. He died in 2010 at age 46, after a brief but devastating battle with pancreatic cancer, and I can now see why many fans hold up "Magnetic Rose" as the the first shining light in his now legendary career.

Which isn't to completely dismiss director Koji Morimoto, who's work here is also superb, I just don't have as much to go on for comparative purposes as I do Kon. The only other work of Morimoto - who's shunned features in favor of just directing short films and music videos - I've seen are his Robot Carnival segment "Franken's Gears", which is a charming bit of destruction that doesn't share many similarities with "Magnetic Rose" beyond their strong animation, and "Beyond", which he did for The Animatrix. Now "Beyond" is where definite similarities can be found, as it also deals with grounded, everyday people suddenly coming across something fantastical that they increasingly struggle to rationalize before it's taken away from them. While much of the underlying narrative is definitely Kon, the execution, the relationships, and the drifts between perceptions are absolutely emphasized by the work of Morimoto, giving us a creative match made in heaven.

And what they made absolutely is heavenly. The story, from concept to execution, would fit perfectly at home in a collection of Ray Bradbury stories. The themes of salvaging the alluring but ultimately harmful memories left behind by the past, executed with spot on precision, brings to life the film Event Horizon never knew it had the potential to be. This is a classic, an absolute classic that absolutely must be shared with fans of anime, fans of science fiction, fans of cinema, fans of good stories told well in general. When the rose first appears, it's the perfect image to foreshadow both wonders and horror. When the cock-sure young Miguel becomes so lost in the fantasy that we never find him again, it's haunting. When Heintz holds his smiling daughter, then witnesses her fall right through him in an echo of her death, it's devastating. When we see the withered body of Eva Friedal, as crumbled and rotten as the heart of her ship, it's heartbreaking. When Heintz is left abandoned among floating debris with his mind finally at peace, it's inspiring.

I've only just seen this film and I already know moments like these will stick with me for a lifetime.

As for the other two...

"Stink Bomb"

I love Roujin Z, which I mentioned above, and which is essentially the predecessor to this film as, with the designs, script, and supervision of Otomo, it tells a madcapped story of bureaucracy gone mad, rampant destruction, and a hapless innocent caught in the middle of it all. There's much hilarity to be found in everyone's scrambled efforts to figure out what's going on, their attempts to clue Nobuo in once they sort it out, then their mission to wipe him off the face of the earth when he just doesn't get it. And he just keeps chugging along, never realizing why that cloud keeps following him everywhere he goes.

The look of this short is a testament to the everyman design work Otomo is know for, with figures that feel like real people and lack the exaggeration anime is know for. Don't ge me wrong, it is caricaturish at times - most especially when you have the shrunken Japanese commander arguing with the massive black American - but it still captures the way everyday people look in an everyday world. And also staying true to Otomo's style, we see that everyday world demolished in explosion after explosion of meticulously animated rubble, often with Nobuo desperately clinging to the handlebars of his scooter for his dear life. Let it never be said that Otomo drew an impressive structure that he didn't also impressively blow to pieces.

Unfortunately, the narrative doesn't always hold together for me. There's absolutely no way a person the average size of Nobuo would be able to emit a vapor cloud that stretches for miles just through his perspiration. They do try to take his metabolism into account by having him wonder why he's always hungry, but we never see him gorging on food as he goes along, nor instead withering away from the quantity of what's being expelled by his body. And it pushes the concept too far for the cloud to suddenly become a psionic extension of his emotions, intentionally shooting out towards opposition and shorting out electronic devices. Isn't him just being a walking cloud of death enough? And how the hell did he get into the spacesuit at the end! That one doesn't even begin to make sense to me.

Also, as well produced as the short is, and as amusing as moments are, it's hard to have a fun time when you're watching tens of thousands of people die just because a guy is an idiot. That makes for a funny punchline to a story, but as a build, it draws out the horror, especially when we learn the apocalyptic implications it has on Japan and the world at large.

It's a fun short, but ultimately uneven.

"Cannon Fodder"

I don't like this one at all. Surprising, as it's the only one of the three actually created in whole by Otomo himself.

This world makes for a great rock album cover, and the story of the nuclear family unit and they way they fit into the machine of their society might have made for a neat three minute music video or short of the same length, but there's nowhere near enough depth to the material to drag it out for the 22 minutes we get here. And man does it draaaaaaag. It's the shortest of the batch, but the hardest to slog through as, Angie's right, we spend five of those minutes just watching them load and fire a gun. An interesting image and concept, yes, but not one I want to observe in real time, especially over a monotonous percussion track slowly working its way into the base of my skull.

The family unit is interesting, but again, nothing that needs 20 minutes to explore. The dad is weary and broken, the child buys into all the propaganda, and the mom keeps them both in line.

Visually, it's a mixed bag. The sketchy, grotesque design work is striking, and reminiscent of the comic art Jamie Hernandez was doing at the time on Tank Girl (and would continue doing a decade later on the Gorillaz music videos), but it's also ugly and dreary and unpleasant to look at. And the idea of the moving "camera" to hint at this being a "single shot" narrative is interesting on paper, but in practice, it's disorienting and calls attention to itself, and also shows limitations in the budget as we pan over still frames or looped animation.

It's hard to say this is a bad short, as a lot of what I don't like is done out of intention. It's meant to be disorienting and empty and monotonous and ugly, so I can't call it a failure, but it's avant garde nature just clashes with my tastes, so I agree with Angie that I'm likely going to skip over it the next time I pop this disc in for a viewing.

Overall

So I pretty much agree with Angie all the way. "Magnetic Rose" is a masterpiece, "Stink Bomb" isn't perfect, but still pretty good, and "Cannon Fodder" is something I want to duck and cover from any time it's mentioned. And like Angie, I agree that the film as a whole doesn't really hold together, as there's no real connective theme between the shorts. I think she's stretching it by applying "memories" to the second and third installments, as it's totally just a reference to the core concept of "Magnetic Rose".

You know what this feels like? Those books where they have a specific story or novella they want to publish (i.e., Shatterday by Harlan Ellison, I am Legend by Richard Matheson, Fear by L. Ron Hubbard) but that story alone isn't enough for them to meet their page length quota, so they stick a few stories behind it to pad the material out. The cover and title are dedicated to that one story, as is the copy on the back, meaning these aren't so much anthologies as they are a novella with bonus features. "Magnetic Rose" is the star of this film, and deservedly so, and "Stink Bomb" and "Cannon Fodder" are just bonus features.

Tony

My foray into anime

What I like about Angie’s picks is they take me out of my comfort zone. And believe me, there’s nothing further outside of my comfort zone than anime. Before I met Noel, the only non-Americanized anime I had ever watched was Vampire Hunter D. Unfortunately, I found the experience excruciating and spent the next fifteen years avoiding anime the way Wilford Brimley avoids salads. Noel has changed that the last few years by sharing some selected and highly regarded anime with me. There was one with, like, a big green rabbit-thing in it. And I believe another had a little girl that could fly. Come to think it, it’s entirely possible those were from the same movie. Anyway, as you’ve probably guessed by now, he didn’t exactly make a convert out of me. That’s why I was so excited when I found out Memories was an anime anthology. This is something I never would’ve watched on my own, and I wanted to discover what it was about Memories that compelled Angie to share it with us.

With my curiosity on high and my mind wide open, I once again set foot into the world of Japanese animation...

Magnetic Rose

I love it when a story has the courage to ease you into its world. I know the modern attention span is so short that you’ve probably stopped reading this sentence already you witless weasel, but I don’t always need to be thrust right into the thick of the action. Magnetic Rose deceptively lulls us into a sense of familiarity, even in this foreign environment, by letting us see our characters in their workaday world. Yes, they’re aboard a space ship, but their daily lives are much like our own. They punch a clock, bicker and banter with their co-workers, and try to scratch out a living for themselves. For the first few minutes, I floated comfortably along in zero g with these men, tricked into thinking this was going to be a situation comedy of sorts. And then they receive the S.O.S. and everything changes.

From the moment they reach the station, this becomes something akin to a Stanley Kubrick film. What’s real? What isn’t? And what do these strange episodes reveal about Heintz, Miguel, and their mysterious hostess? In particular, I was taken with the story of Heintz. The details of his back story unfold gradually, pulling us in bit by bit, so that when it finally detonates, we’re at point blank range emotionally. It’s gripping stuff. Exceptionally well done. I was less engaged by Eva’s story. On its own, it would’ve been interesting, it just lacks the gut punch of Heintz’s story. And poor Miguel is really nothing more than a pawn.

I agree with Angie. I believe there’s a lot of room for interpretation here, and it’s one of the many things I loved about Magnetic Rose. Whatever conclusions you ultimately draw will be far more powerful, and personal, than anything explicit the makers could’ve included.

Stink Bomb

After the dark and emotionally complicated Magnetic Rose, I was certainly not expecting the next chapter to be a farce. On its own, Stink Bomb is a fun little dark comedy - and I use the term “dark” only because of the high body count. In truth, the tone is rather tongue-in-cheek, but, coming as it does on the heels of Magnetic Rose, it seems slight and insignificant. Kind of like watching a Naked Gun movie after L.A. Confidential.

If there’s any deeper meaning here, it was lost on me. I suppose the military’s “hammer to swat a fly” approach to dealing with the infected Nobuo might contain some commentary, and perhaps the biological warfare premise is an update of the atomic war theme that was woven into Godzilla, but you’d have to really search to find a statement.

I enjoyed this quirky bit of comedy about an average joe having the worst day of his, or any, life, but like Angie, I really have to stretch to tie anything here into the theme of “Memories”.

Cannon Fodder

Once again turning on a dime, this final chapter delivers a somber and deceptively simple dystopian tale. The somewhat dispassionate tone of the piece is off-putting at first, but as it goes along, I realized that it mirrors the dreary and hopeless existence of its citizens. Along with the off-kilter character designs, it all kind of keeps you at arm’s length emotionally, but it makes you think.

The simple answer to “What is this trying to say?” is that it’s a commentary on how governments manipulate the masses into doing things without asking “Why?”. In this case, it's war, but you could easily substitute any number of things depending on your own political point of view. Beyond that, I also saw something I guess you might call a coal mine thematic, where generation after generation get stuck in a sort of stasis with the son follows the father and aspirations never seeming to reach any higher than the next rung on the ladder.

The tale of the tape

Three chapters, three very different stories, and, in spite of my normal anime aversion, I enjoyed them all. But in my mind, Magnetic Rose stands head and shoulders above the rest. Not merely a fun diversion like Stink Bomb, or a sometimes "too artistic for its own good" think-piece like Cannon Fodder, Magnetic Rose is a haunting and deeply moving sci-fi drama that will stay in my own memory for a long time to come. Thanks for the nudge, Angie. This was a most worthwhile experience.

Angie

That's an interesting thought about "anthology versus bonus features", Noel, and you're probably right. In this case, it may be something akin to what Walt Disney was doing in the post World War II era, where it was far cheaper and quicker for them to create a collection of shorts to release in theaters rather than a full length film. The title The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad may have attempted to bind those two together, but they have about as much in common as the shorts in Memories do.

I'm so very happy to find that both of you mostly enjoyed the experience, especially "Magnetic Rose." I fear anyone reading this may think we're over-hyping it now, and I suppose we are raising expectations pretty high, but I find it hard to believe that most other people wouldn't also be as impressed with it. Yes, it really is that good.

I am, however, not as sure as Noel that Kon's later works are as good as this one. However, my opinion may not be the most trustworthy on this. For instance, I know I tried to watch one of Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Paprika, but for the life of me, I can't remember which one it was. I just know that I had a really hard time following it and, as such, ended up turning it off. However, it could have simply been my mood at the time, as I plan to try revisiting them again, and would recommend that anyone else should also give at least one of them a shot if you loved "Magnetic Rose."

The dark humor of "Stink Bomb" is probably nowhere near as universal a pleasure, but I'm glad you both appreciated its strange brand of humor. Tony is right in that the tonal shift from the previous short is a hard right turn that takes a bit to settle into, though I personally think the soundtrack is very helpful in that respect. I wasn't as bothered by the absurdity of Nubuo's condition as Noel was, as I figured the huge cloud of gas was simply being done for comedic effect, but he's right in that there's no true way to apply real science to what happens here.

I think Tony hit the nail on the head in terms of describing what "Cannon Fodder" is all about and what it's trying to make us feel and think. I'm a huge fan of dystopian fiction, but I think the lack of a storyline in this one is what stops me from truly being able to enjoy it. If we'd spent more time with the figures we see protesting the working conditions and what they were trying to do (were they perhaps punished for handing out those flyers?), I would have gotten a lot more out of it.

But more than anything, I'm glad that I've exposed Tony to some really great anime. Noel is right in that the genre is like any other with both good and bad to be experienced within it. It certainly has got its fair share of strange and odd examples, but there's also some more traditional stories, as well. I think one of the reasons I've found myself drawn to the genre is that the Japanese seem to have less of the "cartoons are for kids" stigma we often have here in America, and instead often use the genre for things that you just can't do in live action without a considerably higher cost.


We'll be back on the 1st of February with a pick from Noel: The Guyver (1991)