2/19/2006 - G.I. Samurai |
http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=sr&page=title&r=R2&title=178780
A Japanese Army unit, commanded by
Yoshiaki Iba (Sonny Chiba), is mysteriously transported 400 years back
in time to the warring states period of Japanese history. Forming an
alliance with the samurai Kategora who yearns to be the next Shogun,
Iba and his men become embroiled in a brutal and bloody conflict and
end up facing an entire army of Samurai warriors...
Having just watched a trailer for this film I have decided that I can no longer live without it.
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2/12/2006 - Kamen Rider B-Project |
Kamen Rider J is the last of the 'new' Kamen Rider
features and a film that, despite its short-comings, manages to be
quite a good 90s low-budget horror film. There's a fine line between J and ZO and yet, despite the presence of lead Zyuranger actor Mochizuki Yuuta, J certainly
comes across as the better of the two. Perhaps its just that I take
some kind of perverse pleasure in watching a character named Agito meet
a nasty end or maybe its because J is the only Rider (aside from Ichigo
in the Ultraman vs Kamen Rider special) to have 'gone large'.
Despite my current enmity towards the Rider franchise one of the few things that could 'win me back' is a second giant sized Rider.
I'd like to say there's a lot to recommend J
but, despite the fact that I enjoyed it, there's really not. As a
Rider, J has a Rider Kick, a motorbike, a bug-suit and actually refers
to himself as Kamen Rider J and yet he still comes across as
being less of a Rider than Hibiki. It goes to show that sometimes you
can throw in all the traditional elements and it still doesn't
work. I continue to stand by the fact that the only real Riders of the
mythos are the first three; everything else is surplus.
Like the two films preceding this, of which I'm sure there should be some equivalent term such as the Ultra franchise's N Project, J
continues the themes of reinvention and re-imagining that cast the
three, less than distinctive Riders, against a backdrop of symbolism
usually associated with traditional horror movies...the trouble is this
marriage of special effects hero and horror elements often puts the
trilogy on a par with many of the straight-to-video 'classics' new wave
Western B-Movies such as 1983's X-tro (which, incidentally, was banned in Iceland). The roots of this can possibly be traced back to fan-favourite Kamen Rider Black (1987) and its focus on more distinctively repellent monsters-of-the-week and darker storylines. 1992's Shin Kamen Rider is thus the awkward bastard child of Black and certainly the best of the these three Rider B-Project films.
Being a literal retelling of the Rider mythos, Shin
features a man who undergoes surgery and is transformed into a
grotesque grasshopper-man in a fit of post-Cronenberg transformation
angst. The film is dated, overly reliant on moments of shock-horror and
great fun. It is also the only film of the B-Project series not to be
directed by Amemiya Keita though its doubtless that his hand is at work
in their somewhere. For the following two films, ZO and J,
Amemiya's influence looms ever present. It is Amemiya who we have to
thank for the grotesque and wonderful monsters that appear in the later
two films. These suits and models are some of the most convincingly
horrific of the franchise, especially ZO's spider-human and
daemonic child. Despite his acclaimed reputation I can't really say
I've ever been a massive fan of Amemiya. Of the material that he's
worked on that I've seen only Choju Sentai Liveman has really had any significant kind of impact on me (and, having now seen ZO I find it easy to spot Amemiya's influence amongst the armies of VOLT especially Obular), in fact both Zyuranger and Jetman are series that I positively dislike. It is slightly sad seeing these monsters of the B-Movie franchise reduced to bumbling, resurrected idiots in Kamen Rider World
especially when the suits are put to such good effect during these
films. J's opening battle with 'Agito' makes good use of the scenery
and a variety of interesting moves. It came as a small surprise that
the stunt actor responsible for J (and incidentally Black, Shin, ZO and
many others) is the same portly gentleman currently portraying MagiShine. There was a series of pictures posted on a Japanese message board a while back showing screenshots from both Black and Magiranger
and the identical moves and attacks of Black and Shine which is kind of
sad to see especially considering how capable the fights are in the
B-Project films.
(after a quick search online this was sadly the only picture of it I could find)
Out of the three it was ZO that probably impressed least. I remember feeling somewhat confused during World as to why ZO and J's suits were all but identical and to discover that, like the presence of Berry in J and the ominous giant grasshopper in ZO,
the similarity is simply one of thematic evolution and nothing more, a
discovery that I felt made it a curious choice to release them so close
together. Couple this with the similarity between the primary form of ZO's central villain and Shin himself and the B-Project makes for slightly muddled watching. With Shin and J there are obvious gimmicks (the first being a mutant grasshopper and the second being an Ultra-esque giant Rider) but ZO is without gimmick (unless you count the appearance of Isao Sasaki and Ohba Kenji) and largely without merit.
As a whole the B-Project is fun viewing, a nice mix of serious horror themes that can't be taken seriously. As a series of Kamen Rider
films it's an abject failure featuring a handful of ideas that it would
be nice to revisit in a more traditional format but very little
else.
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2/9/2006 - Ifukube Akira |
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Ikufube Akira, composer of the music to
Toho's original 1954 Godzilla film, died last night at the age of 91.
His music, especially the central theme, was responsible for crafting the
atmosphere of Godzilla as much as the dramatic and innovative special
effects. His talent will be sadly missed.
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2/5/2006 - Tiga, Tiga, Burning Bright |
This was originally going to be a post
about Ultraman Tiga. Originally I was going to talk about the greatness
of 'lah veteran Agito
and how great it is that he's been sharing English subtitled episodes of
Tiga with everyone. Sadly Tiga failed to move me so, after two
episodes, I gave up in favour of more Koseidon drug abuse. However, one
of the first things I did notice about the series was Takagi Mio, who played
Captain Iruma Megumi and was present from almost the first scene. Through her
and central character, Makoda Daigo, the viewer is introduced to GUTS and the
TPC. Being somewhat, if not completely, shallow, I decided to cast the net wide
and see if I could find anything out about Miss. Takagi. One of the first things
to turn up was a review for the 1985 film The Berlin Affair on lesbian-films.com
with direct mention of an earlier Japanese film entitled Manji. The Berlin
Affair, as proported by lesbian-films.com, is a situational recreation of
the earlier film and was directed by Liliana Cavani, who will be familiar to
anyone who grew up in Britain in the 80s and 90s and, Smiths record at hand,
thought of themselves as a schoolboy intellectual, as the director of The
Night Porter.
The Night Porter, destined to be shown late at night
on Channel 4 for years to come, is one of those films that appeals directly to
pubescent pseudo-intellectual sexuality. To find that The Berlin Affair
returns to the themes of sexuality and World War II that were so predominant in
The Night Porter, albeit in a different fashion, is no real
surprise.
My
first scene upon witnessing the romantic exchange between Takagi and leading
actress Gudrun Landgrebe was somewhat cynically that only a tokusatsu actress
would take on such a job. This is a really cruel thing to say but not exactly
unfair when considering the actual creative output of many modern actresses
immediately after appearing in a tokusatsu show. To be fair to Takagi her
appearance in The Berlin Affair was a full eleven years prior to her role
as Captain Iruma and was definitely an 'artistic and creative' role as opposed
to a secondary role in a children's programme. The scene itself is artfully
acted, awkward and heartfelt. Suggestive without being explicit and shows that
Takagi can actually portray human emotion, something that she isn't given much
scope for during the opening episodes of Tiga. The awkward acceptance of
emotional feeling and the contrast between the two actresses on a screen also
brings to mind the recent debacle over Rob Marshall's American film, Memoirs
of a Geisha and its predominately Chinese cast.
"The fact that no
Japanese actors had a big enough reputation to merit casting in the film was
taken as a compliment to China's growing power in the film business." (The
Independent, Online Edition, 5 February
2006 16:48)
This statement is absurd and is sadly symptomatic of
Hollywood-logic. Takagi's brave performance in the role of Matsugae Mitsuko more
than underlines this point. Given the chance there are innumerable actresses who
could have portrayed Nitta Sayuri but none of them had the glimmer of 'box
office gold' that the success of films has attached to Zhang Ziyi. Perhaps this
is a slight disservice to Zhang Siu-je as she really is a fantastic dancer.
Having been classically trained in dancer, much like Michelle Yeoh, her talent
is undoubted. You simply need to watch the first 20 minutes of so of House of
Flying Daggers/LOVERS to see her talent. As a side note I really wonder if
Operetta Tanuki Goten, filmed earlier this year and co-starring
Kuuga's Odagiri Joe, and her performance of Japanese dance in this film
went some of the way towards cementing her as the studio's choice of leading
lady. Zhang Ziyi is an amazing actress but there are Japanese actresses of an
equal level of talent who could also have played the role had the Hollywood
studios looked beyond the almighty dollar sign. Perhaps if they had the
situation that currently exists in regards to the film's release in mainland
China wouldn't exist.
Takagi and Landgrebe's on-screen romance parallels
Geisha in that it is equally as brave as putting Zhang Siu-je and
Watanabe Ken together, albeit for all the wrong reasons. The love between the
daughter of the Japanese ambassador and the wife of a Nazi officer is a shocking
and uncomfortable and, it's sad to say but nowadays even though both
'characters' are Japanese, seeing a Chinese actress and a Japanese actor kiss
on-screen has had more of an impact.
The
politics of the situation are entangled and immense and are, like the events
that take place in The Berlin Affair, routed in the Second World War.
However far from being derived from cinematic history, the events that have
precipitated such fervent outrage at the sight of a popular Chinese actress and
a Japanese man embracing romantically are a very real and open wound that, if I
may be forgiven for expressing my political views for a moment, the Japanese
government have failed to address adequately.
"It is really
inappropriate for Chinese actresses to play these roles because of our
historical background. At the very least it's a symbolic move. There will be no
official market for this movie and in the future, this will make filmmakers
really consider carefully whether they want to do another movie like this."
(Lu Yunfei, Nationalist spokesman, Yahoo! News, 2nd
Feburary, 5:42 AM)
And I agree, it is inappropriate...but only
because the mother of its conception is the desire to generate American dollar
bills. It is frustrating to see the British media so determined to square the
blame for the film's failure to be released with the Chinese government rather
than the past and yet I sympathise with Chinese viewers such as Meng Juan (also
quoted from the above Yahoo! News article) who said: "Watching it, I just
felt sad about the Japanese girls, sad about their life. It didn't make me think
about China and Japan at all." But this blog is not about political matters,
it is about cinema so, in order not to further alienate my audience, I shall
refrain from comment.
In both of these on-screen kisses, 20 years apart,
there is drama and controversy. It's just a shame that the controversy generated
by Memoirs of a Geisha isn't because it's a poorly written and poorly
executed farce of a film but because it features a single, awkward kiss.
"I loved that it celebrated all things woman - hair, makeup, perfume,
grace. So what if all of these things were seemingly to please a man. Truth is,
it is the wise woman that can use her perceived vulnerabilities as her strength.
Kudos! If you enjoy a good love story, if you're tired of in your face gore and
crime, if you can applaud hard work and can appreciate a woman using her
femininity to her advantage, then you'll enjoy Memoirs of
a
Geisha." (IMDb user comment posted by American reviewer, ntashapierre-1)
Despite
the inherent stupidity of her comments, we can't fault Ms. ntashapierre-1 for
her less-than-useless commentary on cheap thrill, girl power-lite American
feel-good femininity. She is, after all, the audience that Memoirs of a
Geisha is targetted at. If, however, you are looking for a director that
really captures the themes of feminine sexuality and the art of romance then you
could do worse than looking up the work of Liliana Cavani. If anything good is
to come out of the cinematic adapation of Memoirs of a Geisha it is that
viewers with no interest in 'the Orient' (originally an English word meaning
'bright' later corrupted and associated with Asia in a less than friendly manner
by the resident ambassadors of the Empire) may find themselves looking for
'similiar' tales of romantic overcoming and stumble upon The Berlin
Affair. In that manner perhaps the war against facile and docile cinema may
still be won and, surprisingly, in that manner Memoirs of a Geisha might,
just might, have been a good idea. |
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2/4/2006 - "...cowboys, mountaineering, villainous
secret societies, bombs on school buses and villains who beat children
and women just for fun." |
Watching Tsuburaya's 1978 series Kyoryu Sentai Koseidon is like taking drugs. Watching it dubbed in Mandarin only compounds the situation. For those brave enough to try, veryCD
has ed2k links for TV rips of the entire series. The central premise of
the series seems to be about a group of scientific adventurers from the
technologically advanced year of 2001 who venture back into Earth's
prehistoric past only to be confronted by owl-like alien invaders. In
preparation for just such an occasion, central team member Go dons a
red leather combat suit and is launched out of a tube from one of the
team's ground support vehicles in order to fight prehistoric alien
villainy and rescue a blonde foreign princess.
In regards to
other deranged individuals in red suits, thanks to the artful
translation of Arislan and the promotion of August Ragone, I had the
chance to watch the opening episode of Toei's Kaiketsu Zubat
starring the increasingly familiar Miyauchi Hiroshi. The episode is, in
turns action-packed, sorrowful and funny and features a highly
individual take on Ishinomori's favourite themes of loss and vengeance.
Zubat has everything; cowboys, mountaineering, villainous secret
societies, bombs on school buses and villains who beat children and
women just for fun. I can't help but recommend this brave, eclectic
story for anyone interested in adventure shows.
To continue
the theme of lucky red heroes, also thanks to the auspices of the
aforementioned Arislan and August, I also watched the opening episode
of Ultraseven recently. This series is perhaps the first in the Ultra franchise that has really grabbed me from just the opening episode alone. Whilst Ultraman Max certainly contains my favourite ever Ultra episode (#15, directed by the versatile Miike Takashi), Seven
is unique in its portrayal of an Ultraman who remains without a host
and learns, through a human-like disguise, to live amongst humans
whilst protecting them from the threats of outer space. The added bonus
comes in the surprising shape of actress Hishimi Yuriko playing the
character of Anne Yuri who is, despite the age of the series, one of
the most attractive faces to have featured in the franchise. But don't
be compelled to take my word for this as you can, for the time being,
download both Ultraseven and Zubat from the Video Lounge at 'lah. Please don't forget to leave a message of thanks to the hard work of Arislan though.
Whilst neither Kabuto nor Boukenger
look terribly appealing to me it's nice to be reminded that perhaps,
whilst my romance with Toei sentai may have ended, there's still enough
available in terms of action cinema from the 60s/70s to hold my
interest and make each new discovery as pleasing as if it had only just
been broadcast.
Here's to the absence of five primary colours in 2006.
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1/31/2006 - Chasing the Hibiki Myth |
Recently, the ever useful Ryuujin pointed me in the direction of the wikipedia article for Hibiki. Whilst mostly informative, the article featured a segment entitled 'Criticism' which,
whilst critical, failed to be as informative and related little more to
the arrogant opinion of one disgruntled poster. In order to provide
better service to wikipedia readers I have edited the original poster's
remarks to demonstrate the wider picture that resulted in the forced
abdication of Takadera and Ooishi. In doing this I have attempted to
maintain the original author's less-biased observations and to imbue
the piece with a more informative spirit without being completely in
favour of the show or utterly dead set against it. This of course means
that my edit will only last for five minutes before someone else
changes it back to its original negative clutter thus I've decided to
replicate the piece for your consideration:
"Like Kamen Rider Ryuki
this series also shared some criticism. Whilst ratings remained
relatively high toy sales failed to meet the expectations of premiere
sponsor, Bandai and thus producer Takadera Shigeki and co-writer Ooishi
Shinji were fired midway through the season (circa episode #29) and
replaced by Shirakura Shinichirou and Inoue Toshiki who were, in part,
responsible for Kamen Rider 555 and Kamen Rider Agito.
In a technical aspect, this rider show lacked the main trademarks of
the franchise; specifically the "HENSHIN!!!" cry and use of a henshin belt. Other complaints included the makamou warriors Douji and Hime; not to mention the daikaiju themselves, were relatively weak compared to past kaijin; such as the Mirror Monsters from Kamen Rider Ryuki, the Orphenochs from Kamen Rider 555, and the Mysterious Undead from Kamen Rider Blade. Furthermore, the Rider designs, as well as the use of a musical instrument motif also annoyed many fans."
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1/19/2006 - 山村老屍 / A Wicked Ghost |
山村老屍 (A
Wicked Ghost) is awkward to pin down, the most memorable aspect of it being
rooted in its not-so-subtle reference to the popular mythos of the Ring phenomenon. Directed by Tony Leung, although not the Tony Leung (the
actor being Tony Leung Ka-fai and the director being Tony Leung Siu Hung). Sadly
it's probably easier to be nasty to this film when you realise the lack of
connection with the Tony Leung but, taken by itself, the film isn't that
bad. It's certainly not amazing and it hasn't dated well but there are some nice
ideas none the less, the aforementioned reference to the Ring series in
the shape of a mock curse video (that actually uses footage from the Sadako
tape, no less) sent by Francis Ng's character being one of them.
Whilst
watching the film, after acknowledging that Francis Ng's character had the same
name as a friend of ours, another friend pointed out that Ng had also been in
some decidedly adult films during his time, a fact that kind of takes the
edge off some of the drama as events unfold. There's much to recommend the film
for those interested in a quick, subtle injection of not-so-horrific horror
however, like Suzuki's Ring novel, it often falls flat and at times the
film struggles to maintain its imitation of late 90s new wave Japanese horror
films whilst attempting to marry it to a very traditional sort of Chinese ghost
story. The film is made all the more pleasing by the presence of Gigi Lai, who
is by turns, pretty as well as accomplished in her role. Both her and Ng hold
the film together and drag it, sometimes kicking and screaming, towards its
surprise ending.
The film was swiftly followed by two sequels, the first
in 2000, the same year as its parent, and the second in 2002 for which Gigi Lai
returned. There's a lot to be said in favour of A Wicked Ghost, most
notably its sense of humour, its just a shame that as a whole it doesn't hold
together as well as perhaps it should have. Given time I think I'd certainly
take a look at the sequels, the end of the first film certainly justifies
curiosity about the eventual expansion of the film's central theme and back
story.
All in all it's far from a perfect film but worth a look none the
less, if only for the respective talent of Ng and Lai. |
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1/15/2006 - Gao Gao Gaomajiro: Magiranger Review #30 - 43 *SPOILERS WITHIN* |
At the prompting of  automated_alice I posted a request for recommendations of where to start watching Magiranger's
later arc developments from. The decision was arrived at mostly out of
boredom but also out of curiosity and a little bit of jealousy at being
so out of the loop. At the recommendation of the ever-useful Ryuu-kun
kindly directed me towards the MajiLegend arc in episodes #30 - 32 and
two of the more recent episodes, #42 - 43. The last episodes of the
series we watched were the Nai and Mea almost get character
development storyarc of episodes #11 - 12, since then I've abstained
from the show simply because of an over dislike for the way in which
the series is presented but also because of impatience with the past
three years worth of shows. Watching episode #30 with its overtly Gaoranger meets Empire Strikes Back
themes was interesting simply because it demonstrated that the writers
and producers had attempted to infuse some depth into the world in
which our characters exist. Granted the locations are still the same as
those you can spot in shows like Battle Fever J but as long as
you're being told of the new details that are now used to explain the
reuse of locations it contributes more than detracts from the story.
This is used to great effect in episode #30 as the Ozu-tachi venture to
a totally alien world in search of their mother's mentor, Yo -
...Snowgel. This kind of depth is what makes the sentai franchise work,
it's the kind of storytelling that ignores limitations and asks you to
employ your imagination and it's nicely handled in this episode as it
is in any of my preferred sentai series. The gambit of searching for a
new Heavenly Saint and finding him all bundled up in eggshell is little
more than a retread of the Gao-tachi's search for Pyo-chan in new
colours and magic wrapping paper whilst Snowgel's actual words of
wisdom to them are little more than filtered Yoda dialogue right up
until the point Snowgel/Yoda/Pyo-chan suddenly changes his mind
completely and decides that the Magi-tachi are great and deserve a
power up.
The manner in which the five central heroes ascend to
Legend mode is somewhat disappointing. Rather than having the
Magi-tachi train hard to unlock the power in themselves (hey, remember
those good old days of Hibiki before episode #30 and the
plastic Disc Animal mode?) Snowgel just gives them a new phone
number...which leads me to believe that Magitopia is probably charging
our heroes a fortune for line rental. As to the appearance of the
Legend modes...well, I liked Gingaman too and I suppose I can't
complain too much as sentai is all about ideas coming back around and
its been a while since we've seen this kind of theme. It's a nice note
that the Legend mode is what the original Magi-tachi looked like but
the idea is lost beneath the waves of pointless posturing and
increasing toy sales. The dial-rods look intensely stupid. Points out
of ten for following up on the theme of the conventional Magiranger
transformation device but they still look rubbish.
Episode #31 contains both the sweetest and bitterest moments of Magiranger
and the very axis upon which my new lack of faith in sentai now
revolves. Beginning the episode with a very cute, if disgruntled goat
and a depiction of how their new Legend powers have influenced the
Magi-tachi, episode #31 dangles the carrot of character development in
front of us before swiftly turning round and repetitively hammering us
with the stick of toy sales over and over again. As the Magi-tachi
learn that with each continuing use of the Legend power they run the
risk of losing not only their identities but also their memories and
evolving from human beings into fully fledged Heavenly Saints. With
Kai's decision to use the power regardless and his faith that, because
of his belief in his family, once they become Heavenly Saints they will
meet each other anew and form new relationships, the show reaches a
point of drama unrivalled by anything in preceding episodes. As they
stand at the end, having swiftly dispensed with the monster of the week
and the obligatory action sequence designed to sell toys of the newest
mech, ready to cross the threshold and embark on a new journey and new
direction and suddenly MagiShine, who is a completely different point
of contention in himself, pops up, punches a ticket and says 'Hey,
kids, don't worry about any of that actual character progression stuff,
let's just make sure kids see your Legend mode as much as possible so
we can sell a whole load of toys before Christmas' or words to that
effect. In that single moment my faith and hope in the idea that the
series had somehow matured in my absence died one thousand deaths. In
that moment when MagiShine reared his beaming, chump-ish face the
possibility of a truly epic storyline withered and perished.
The
idea of the Magi-tachi, ascendant and lost, recovering their
relationships with one another in a last, desperate gambit against the
Satanic majesties of the Infelshia would have been the most original
and vibrant direction the series could have taken, it would have lifted
the show up from the mire of mediocrity and elevated it to something
more than 'this year's flavour of sentai'. The only harm it would have
done to the show was the lack of toy sales that could been derived from
it and the loss of overseas sale...which, sadly, is the reason why I
should never have even dreamt that it was a possibility. There is no
lesson to be learnt in this neutered ending. With great power comes
great merchandise, as Peter Parker's uncle Ben might have said had he
fostered the Magi-tachi. The idea of opening up a storyline must always
take second place to the advert breaks, this is a kid's show, I should
have reminded myself earlier. And so, despite all the footnotes and
depth attached to the world in which our heroes fight their daemonic
foes, we ultimately learn that such details are disposable. Which
brings me neatly back to the matter of MagiShine.
The first
thing I noticed about MagiShine was his amazing ability to transform a
bland, floppy haired young model into a portly middle-aged man in a
padded suit. Despite the henshin sequence, despite the jumping and
hopping, I can only ever see MagiShine as two separate characters; one
is bland, the other is fat. In his human guise, MagiShine continues to
play the role by the rules established by previous extra-senshi,
DekaBreak. Like Break he too is denied the significance of being the
sixth member of the team by being supplanted by the recent trend for
additional armoured warriors to side with our character prior to and
following his introduction. Was there any real point in introducing
Shine when we had already encountered MagiMother? Was DekaBreak really
needed when DekaMaster was already knocking down cannon fodder henchmen
in a gravel pit? The answer, if you dismiss the obvious hanging demands
of Bandai's marketing and sales department, is no. He's pointless...and
boring. Don't get me wrong there's certainly potential; the fact that
he's not even remotely human but one of the plethora of Heavenly Saints
upon which the series mythology is based on is, on paper, fantastic. On
the screen however he simply acts like any other human character
starved of development. There is nothing about him that suggests great
power and divinity. Like his spiritual predecessor, Break, he is
surplus to requirements.
The following episode is a traditional sentai episode, one that could have been set at any point during Magrianger's
40/50 episode run and one that could have existed happily with only a
few minor changes in almost any other sentai series. Despite their
Legend power-ups, the episode proves sadly that the Magi-tachi have
failed to pass go and certainly failed to collect £200. If I hadn't
seen Ito Yuuki in Battle Royale II then I really wouldn't
believe that he could actually act. The deadly mould, which Wolzard has
been instructed to unleash upon the world by the new masters of the
Infelshia, is straight out of Jon Pertwee era Doctor Who. In
fact, as the Magi-tachi were grovelling upon the ground, grinding their
teeth and clenching their fists about the prospect of being beaten by
Wolzard again I half-expected to see the third Doctor and Jo
Grant pull up in Bessie and for the whole area to suddenly become
crowded by UNIT soldiers. In retrospect though, this episode couldn't
help but be anything but a let-down. It's sole purpose was to reveal
more about Wolzard and his relation to the Ozu children and, after the
colossal abortion of possibly innovative storylines that marked the
conclusion of the previous episode, #32 was always going to be a
failure.
Moving onto the second block of episodes, the most
striking thing about #42 was how insignificant the roles of Nai and Mea
had become. That, and the fact that in the ten episode since #32 the
Infelshia had changed hands once more made this new storyline seem only
marginally related to the previous block we had watched. In regards to
these new villains, I will say that one thing this series deserves
credit for is the detailed manoeuvrability of the monster suits. Both
the central bosses and the average 'monster of the week' in this
episode were infinitely superior, in terms of facial expression, to
previous sentai monsters. This was certainly one of the rare moments
were it was obvious how far the franchise has progressed in the few
years since Gaoranger. I'm not sure that, when reading books
relating to Babylonian and Mesopotamian myth and legend, I had ever
imagined Dagon to be a biped with a giant fish for a head but I'm
willing to concede to the great law of personal and creative
interpretation here. The Magi-tachi's struggle against the monster of
the week reminded me a lot of the Killer Ghost episodes in Abaranger
which is something I shouldn't really be surprised by as it's a popular
theme in, well, everything. The following episode, #43, is perhaps the
best Magiranger episode I've seen to date, it's also probably
the last as I'm not sure I can fully follow the series with any real
conviction but it's an interesting example of what the series could
have achieved if it had taken this approach much earlier in its
development. Again there's insignificance of Nai and Mea which is odd
seeing as the two female villains format worked especially well in Hurricanger and Abaranger,
but that's not as important for the reason that this episode seems to
present the Magi-tachi as real characters, even if Kai has increasingly
become Shioya Shun-lite. Despite the frog theme and the Mighty Lady-esque
'tongue' of the frog monster, despite the fact that having 'evil
versions' of our suited heroes isn't exactly the most unique of themes
(and worked best in Gaoranger when the opposing suits had cute,
little devil horns), episode #43 is good, it's just a shame that the
surrounding material does it so little credit. One of the most
surprising aspects of the episode for me is the fact that Matsumoto
Hiroya has a moment of lucidity and actually tries to act rather than
shout and sulk. Admittedly not all the faults of his previous
performances are done to him (the Toei directors in charge of driving
this franchise all the way to McDonald's and Toys R Us need to take
their fair share of the blame for their direction) but, based on early
episodes, I'd utterly wrote him off as a particularly congested
sounding idiot.
Episode #43 is a good episode with which to end my experience of Magiranger.
On the negative side, it's certainly a case of too little, too late;
far too much water has passed under the bridge to make me care about
what happens in the short 40/50 episode lifespan of these characters
however it does have to be said that this episode certainly rates
higher than comparitive episodes of other recent sentai shows. I can't
comment on Dekaranger because I certainly still can't find the
motivation to watch anything more of that series than I actually did,
but on a level with Abaranger, epsiode #43 of Magiranger certainly triumphs. I can't help shake the idea that if the good aspects of both Magiranger and Abaranger had been fused, or if the producers and writers had simply spent more time developing the world and characters of Magiranger
without wasting its potential then this series would certainly have
been a triumph. As it is however, it's a nice episode to end my
relationship with modern sentai. Fitting but far from
perfect.
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1/5/2006 - Three Colours Hurricanger: Three Colours: Red |
Title: Three Colours Hurricanger (3/3): Three Colours: Red
Genre: Het, bizarre love triangle
Sentai: Ninpuu Sentai Harikenja
Pairing: Shiina Yousuke (Hurricane Red) x Nono Nanami (Hurricane Blue)), Bita Kouta (Hurricane Yellow) x Nono Nanami (Hurricane Blue)
Rating: U
Disclaimer: Toei owns the rights to all Super Sentai characters.
 ( Three Colours Hurricanger: Three Colours: Red )
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1/3/2006 - [MV] G3 // Heroes |
G3 // Heroes
(52.2MB)
Footage: Kamen Rider Agito episodes #1 - 4
Music: Edison Chen - Heroes (Gen Y Cops Theme)
I'm not a huge fan of Agito. Having dug up HK bootleg rips
from eMule (the first with a mysterious TV-Nihon logo plastered in the
corner) I decided to try and do something productive with the footage
of Agito's one interesting male character, simply to justify the fact that I'd wasted 23 minutes x 4 of my life.
It's not the best MV in the world, mostly because I got bored in the
middle, but I thought I'd post it none the less just because I have
nothing better to do with it. |
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12/30/2005 - Go-Con!: Japanese Love Culture |
Cast/crew of note: Fukuzumi Mio (Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger)
After
watching 九個女仔一隻鬼 yesterday with automated_alice
we finally got round to watching Go-Con, a film purchased from
the ever-useful DDDHouse a couple of
months ago in order to witness Fukuzumi Mio's only credited
pre-Hurricanger appearance...the trouble was that neither of us were
actually 100% certain what Fukuzumi would look like out of her Wendinu costume
so, in order to have some basis of comparison we blutacked a photograph of her
to the side of the television. Sadly her role consisted of two very brief
scenes, neither of which were as memorable as they could have been.
As
for the rest of the film...erm. The main character, Taichi, played by Kawabata
Ryuta looked strikingly like Faizu's Handa Kento and was sadly just as
dislikeable. The film does get points out of ten however for featuring Hoshino Mari, who has very cute
sticky-out ears. This is the kind of thing we wish to see more of in Japanese
cinema. |
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12/29/2005 - Shinobi Sawajiri |
Sawajiri-pon is in the upcoming Shinobi: Heart Under Blade!! This means I *have* to see it now. ^_^
Also featuring in the film (as the central characters) are Nakama Yukie (Gokusen, Gamera III: Revenge of Isis) as Oboro of the Iga clan and Odagiri Joe (Kamen Rider Kuuga, Pacchigi!, Azumi) amusingly playing a character named Kouga Gen-no-suke of the Kouga clan. Sawajiri-pon is the fourth name on imdb's credit list which means that hopefully she'll have a significant role as well.
Further reading can be found at ultramanlah.
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12/21/2005 - Suenaga Update #2 |
Thai-toku
are apparently 'confirming' Suenaga-pon as Pink along with the rest of
the cast for the team....including the other girl touted as Pink
appearing as yellow.
Still taking this with a pinch of salt so far.
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