Reviews

This movie is fantastic.

Well polished storyline impresses us with pyramid of power and terror. Savage islanders fear him by heart. Mighty dinosaurs are easily slain by him. He is King Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World! Though I don't have particular fondness for stop motion animation, I thought visual effects are great. Essences of VFX for gigantic materials are perspective, points of view and contrast with smaller / nearer objects, and this film is filled with very clever examples of them.

And this movie is cruel.

You see, that huge ape is not responsible for disaster in New York. Totally not. He might be horrible tyrant in Skull Island, but he never hoped to visit big apple. All of tragedies of later part were basically done by human arrogance, and nobody feels sorry for poor Kong. But this selfish cruelty effected as an unexpected pathos, and made this movie a forever masterpiece. Never miss.

Unbelievable mixture of the best dinosaur visuals of human history and completely brainless, unconvincing plot even worse than "One Million Years B.C." Perfect example of misery born from misguided commercialism. This is amazingly silly that you may enjoy it ironically.

Under the influence of fabulous Gamera movies, and as an answer to Hollywood crap, Toho proudly presented this Gojira 2000 Mireniamu.

And they don't understand the point of monster story, as always.

Visual effects are the best of the series. Some scenes maybe better than Gamara and Hollywood Godzilla, and of course, others are not. But you know, it is not the point.

You know, the point is the screenplay. Some details of the screenplay like "Gojira detecting network" are relatively good, and of course, others like careless approach to dangerous monster and unconvincing escape are not (They tried to match against Emmerich's farce? Idiots!). No, not details. Plot.

The plot of this movie is totally pointless. Screenwriters (They did that blasted Gojira VS Supesugojira and Gojira VS Mekagojira !) are lost their way in maze of details and forgot to build solid main story line. Especially, Oruga pointlessly appeared, pointlessly transformed twice or three times and was immediately killed by Gojira. Effects for this lame scene were not bad. What a waste, of talents and characters.

American cryosurgeons tried to anatomize frozen body of Yoshimitsu Taga, the great samurai general of 400 years ago, then found he had been in suspended animation. Occasionally, a guard of the institution tries to steal the priceless katana(samurai sword) of resurrected warrior, to be slashed with the very treasure. Yoshimitsu wanders about modern American town, happens to slay street gangs with guns to save an old man. Yoshimitsu is living in laws and morals of ancient war age, so that is very natural to him. But cryosurgeons want to kill him secretly to avoid trouble, and of course, police force tries to shoot him down...

You can easily see how silly the plot is, however, I recommend this film. The samurai in this film is REAL. Actor Hiroshi Fujioka is genuine sensei of swordsmanship, so he knows how to use katana and how a samurai think, feel and act in a strange situation. Fujioka's presence made this lame plot a memorable tragedy.

Magnificent and sad music by Richard Band is another salvation of the feature.

Even if you got decades, you cannot live a true life without cause and effort. However, only a few months is long enough for who is awake to the fact. That is strong and obvious theme of this forever masterpiece Ikiru, so I guess nobody wise enough to see the film will miss the message from Kurosawa. And warm, sincere view to Watanabe keeps the movie from being preachy. This is the most earnest love song to the human life and will.

But never forget the challenge from Kurosawa to us. Near the ending of the movie, almost all bureaucrats who praised noble will of Watanabe at his funeral, turned back to lifeless, daily ostrichism. Only a young man found the hypocrisy and stood in anger, however, he could not be brave to point their hypocrisy, so sat again silently.

You see? Getting the message is far from enough. Just act, or at least try to act, not to waste your precious life. Let's live truly.

There is almost nothing enjoyable in this film. Story is boring, wasting the talents of relatively good actors for kaiju (Japanese term for huge monster) movies. Legendary lion kaiju named King Seesaa is useless and annoying.

Only one exception: Mekagojira!

I NEVER try to insist this gaudy rivet-clad, bellows-jointed robot kaiju is convincing, neat or realistic. Yes, this is ridiculous, but hey, also a GREAT FUN! I cannot find any body part of him without weapon. Eyes, mouth, neck, chest, fingers, toes, knees... almost all surface of Mekagojira is covered with missile launchers or beam emitters. When he fights, I cannot find his shape behind thick, foggy gunsmoke and flood of lights. How extreme! That's why we kaiju fans in Japan call the special effects director Shokei Nakano, "the Mad Bomber," and I think this Gojira tai Mekagojira is the greatest entertainment he has ever created.

Music composer Masaru "Yojinbo" Sato's stunning beat of drums for Mekagojira makes my blood burn, too.

I admire 80 percents of this feature. Reincarnation of Mina is a good idea, and Dracula's agony could be nice spice of a story. But last 20 percents destroyed the drama.

Dracula should not hesitate to bite Mina. His love should be pure vampiric, not contaminated by God-fearing weakness. Mina should not tempt Dracula. Her love should be pure religious.

If Dracula strongly wanted to rejoin his wife as undeads forever, and Mina wanted ultimate salvation of his husband*s soul before god, this could be one of the best vampire movies. What a tragedy.

This Nosferatu is caught in insanity, because he cannot enjoy his immortality, and wants to infect them with his lunacy. Maybe ridiculous for some audience, but this is the most horrifying vampire movie for a man with heart of vampire. Fantastic beauty of Isabelle Adjani also accents the nightmare.