Film: K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask
Release date: 10th January 2011
Certificate: 12
Running time: 137 mins
Director: Shimako Sato
Starring: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Takako Matsu, Tôru Nakamura, Kanata Hongô, Yuki Imai
Genre: Action/Adventure/Crime/Drama
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Japan
Japanese cinema is known for producing many things from classic monster movies (Godzilla; 1954) to even more classic samurai epics – Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), Throne Of Blood (1957) and Yojimbo (1961), to name just three – and most recently, supernatural J-Horror such as The Ring (1998), The Grudge (2002) and Dark Water (2002). However, Shimako Sato’s latest feature (her first in over ten years) is none of these, and offers a very different vantage on an increasingly popular national cinema.
In an alternate 1940s, where the Second World War never happened, the fictional Japanese capital of Teito revels in a prolonged aristocracy that sees the rich owning the majority of the wealth and the poor living in shantytowns on the fringes of the city. However, there is a proverbial thorn in the side of their tranquility; a mysterious masked villain known as K-20 – the phantom thief with twenty faces – wrecks havoc all over the city, stealing priceless objects from the elite.
Meanwhile, a talented circus acrobat Endo Heikichi (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is hired for a bogus job that results in him being framed and arrested as K-20. With the help of some professional thieves – among them is Genji (Jun Kunimura) – Endo escapes custody and tries to convince the city’s celebrity police inspector (Toru Nakamura) of his innocence by using his acrobatic skill to challenge and apprehend the real K-20…
K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask arrives as a rather unorthodox breath of fresh air from an industry whose current fad seems to be churning out a high volume of low-budget, splatter-infused exploitation flicks. The film is a lighthearted swashbuckler-cum-superhero fantasy reminiscent of old, adventure-filled matinees of yesteryear, assisted with some 21st century filmmaking knowhow.
Performances are good all round, if perhaps a little straightforward and without much subtlety; this isn’t much of problem considering the lighthearted subject matter. Kaneshiro makes for a great lead whilst the older and wiser Kunimura serves well as mentor – it’s an engaging double act. Nakamura positively enjoys every second of screen time as the hotshot inspector, whilst the rest of the cast also appears to have a lot of fun, promoting a vibrant and uncharacteristic optimistic chemistry. As a result, Teito is quite possibly one of the happiest dystopias ever committed to film; even the orphaned children living in alleyways and boxes seem strangely content with their squalor.
This overall sense of colour and cheer is supported wonderfully by slick and professional cinematography that exudes the kind of old-school glamour that’s akin to a golden-age Hollywood picture. The film’s production design follows a similar modus operandi; reveling in modernist, art-deco architecture that lends the film a certain magical quality. It’s not perfect. There are a couple of moments where the film loses its period essence; the scenes that see Endo carry out his training by free running across the roofs of Teito’s skyline don’t exactly feel like that they’re taking part in late-1940s Japan for, example.
However, this is an alternate timeline, as indicated by the opening narration in an almost trailer-like manner (the modern day infomercial?) as well as the steampunk-esque flying machines that breeze past in the film’s first extreme wide shot. The inclusion of a Tesla inspired contraction – the MacGuffin that K-20 wishes to steal – that can inevitably be programmed for evil not only suggests that we are firmly in fantasy/comic book territory but raises the stakes to tantalizingly old-fashioned world-domination levels for the hero to overcome.
Part of K-20’s overall enjoyment lies in its rather deft ability to riff off many varying genre conventions and iconographies. Part super-hero movie, part steampunk fantasy, part detective movie, part heist movie, part period adventure, part romance, part comedy – the list goes on. The K-20 thief is a compound caricature made from elements of Spider-Man, Robin Hood, The Shadow and Zorro. Naturally, this does mean that the film is not particularly original, a mere recycled mishmash of various genre elements. However, its combination of said elements and its execution keeps things fairly unique and fresh, if only from a visual standpoint.
The set pieces themselves are very entertaining and make one pine for the days when these kinds of action scenes were the norm instead of computer-generated monstrosities duking it out for as long as the budget can last. Do you remember a time when computers and wires were only used to enhance a fight scene? K-20 remembers, and it makes for a refreshing change of pace. Implausibility is challenged but stays within the limits of the film’s logic. Endo and K-20’s showdowns are most enjoyable, partly through using the real actors for those scenes but also due to Sato’s decisions with regards to camera placement. Movements and stunts are given room to breath, and never come across as jumbled orgies of random angles, as is the case with a lot of contemporary action cinema. Other modern action movie gimmicks such as slow motion and fiddly camera-centric moves are used sparingly and effectively.
Another pleasant surprise is that the film’s inclusion of comedic relief, for the most part, works quite nicely and contains plenty of quirky Japanese humour - Akechi’s ridiculously young side-kick fantasizes about the Tesla device’s destructive power as, in his day-dream, it wipes out the city in a huge mushroom cloud. It then cuts back to the adolescent as he stares vacantly and longingly into the middle distance. Some of the heist elements of the film are also quite subversive; one sequence sees an entire section of a bridge get stolen by Genji’s group of thieves, seriously.
But the most amazing thing on display here is not the film’s ability to fathom a good balance between sincerity and tongue-in-cheek silliness – a sub-plot featuring Yoko, a politically ignorant heiress and love-interest, wanting to help feed the poverty stricken orphans is about as serious as it gets – but its overall execution. For a film that runs at a seemingly bloated two hours and twenty minutes, the pacing is incredibly brisk with very few dull moments. Also, for a film that was made for less than the average catering budget for a medium size Hollywood production, production values are extraordinarily high and offer plenty of bang for buck.
K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask is ultimately a disposable, yet highly enjoyable romp: think Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) made as a costumed action-adventure serial. Deep down, there’s nothing particularly new here but the film works on sheer bravado, nostalgia and entertainment value alone. Worth a look. MP
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