SPECIAL FEATURE: DVD Release: Touching Wild Horses

This is an English-language release.

Two lost souls live isolated from the world...

After a terrible car accident involving his family, 12-year-old Mark is sent to live with his aunt Fiona (Seymour) on a beautiful and remote island. Isolated from most of the world, Fiona and a park ranger are the only human inhabitants of this wind-swept island, home to herd of wild horses.

Fiona’s reclusive personality makes Mark’s new life on the island difficult but he soon begins to see the beauty of the nature and the animals around them, including the horses they are forbidden to touch.

When the mother of a young colt is killed, Mark breaks the rules and begins to feed and nurture the young animal. At first Fiona is furious, but as she and Mark begin to create their own family bonds, she helps him to keep the horse from starving, and each learns lessons from the other about compassion, faith and family ties.

Film: Touching Wild Horses
Release date: 14th February 2011
Certificate: PG
Running time: 91 mins
Director: Eleanor Lindo
Starring: Mark Rendell, Jane Seymour, Charles Martin Smith, Gloria Slade, James McGowan
Genre: Drama
Studio: 4Digital/Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: Canada/UK/Germany

REVIEW: DVD Release: Death Tube

Film: Death Tube
Release date: 20th September 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 117 mins
Director: Yohei Fukuda
Starring: Shoichi Matsuda, Wataru Kaoru, Ishino Atsushi, Namikawa Hajime, Ashihara Kensuke
Genre: Crime/Horror/Thriller
Studio: 4Digital
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

In a world where images of the macabre and bizarre are readily available, and consumers are becoming more and more difficult to shock, Japanese director Yohei Fukuda (Chanbara Beauty/Tokyo Gore School) brings us Death Tube, a film about an internet site where online voyeurs log on to witness murder as entertainment.

Satoshi Inoue is introduced to a horrific underground website called Death Tube (God knows how YouTube have allowed this, if they are as yet aware - even the logo is identical), where unfortunate victims are brutally murdered live online. The grisly spectacle is filmed by webcams and broadcast over the internet.

Satoshi inexplicably wakes up to find himself an unwilling participant in the proceedings, trapped in a dingy dungeon-like room, with a laptop, linked up via webcam to the Death Tube site, along with 7 other equally terrified victims.

They are taunted by a malevolent yellow bear who appears first as a cartoon on the screen, and then as a man in a suit, who forces them to compete against each other in a series of sadistic games for their lives. Only one of them – the bear informs them – will get the chance to leave Death Tube alive...


Death Tube begins as an exciting, inventive horror, taking a clever new angle on the torture-porn genre. Its use of webcams and a familiar internet site format are exploited well, and make good use of the non-existent budget. Sadly, though, by forty minutes in it feels like Fukuda may have played his hand too soon. The clever use of internet video format begins to feel like old hat, and the shock factor of our main protagonist finding himself the star of the very show he’s been guiltily of enjoying has worn off. By the third act the whole premise of an internet death room is pretty much null-and-void, with the camera cutting less-and-less to the web cam view, and when it does only as an afterthought. Fukuda seems almost weighed down by the weight of his own clever idea, and couldn’t wait to get it out of the way as soon as possible so he could get on with what he really wants to do, which is to make Saw 16.

As a comment on internet consumer culture, and the de-sensitisation of the modern internet user, Death Tube succeeds admirably. Like John McNoughton did so well in Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, Fukuda holds a mirror up to show us our own desire for grisly entertainment. Shocking as it is to see viewers hungrily consume murder-as-entertainment, and comment gleefully on the gruesome action, we cannot escape the fact that we are also watching the grisly events play out for our own enjoyment. However, whereas McNoughton cleverly left the violence largely to our imagination, Fukuda has no such subtle designs. He’s happy to show us every gory, bloody detail - repeatedly and in super slow-mo if necessary.

Death Tube is largely a pastiche of its influences, most obviously the Saw films, but also fellow no-budget underground Asian shockers like The Guinea Pig Series’ Flower Of Flesh And Blood, which it clearly emulates. There’s also shades of Funny Games’ genial tormentors Peter and Paul in the yellow teddy bear, skipping happily among the carnage, and taking guiltless delight in the suffering he causes. He almost winks to us the audience, making us all the more complicit in what’s happening. Unlike Funny Games director Michael Haneke, Fukuda doesn’t present the events in a sterile, analytical way. He’s here to have fun, and doesn’t care who knows it. This isn’t one of Haneke’s lectures, it’s more like Fukuda’s sick joke, and he’s having undeniable fun watching it all play out.

Sadly, the film all too often suffers from its technical limitations. Despite some inventive camerawork (including a beautifully composed final shot, which holds as the credits role), the whole thing looks like it’s been shot on home camcorders. If only Fukuda had had more of the courage of his convictions, and maybe exploited his lack of budget to shoot the whole thing from web-cam mode. Why not? It worked for Paranormal Activity. There’s also a bizarrely jarring classical soundtrack, which you know has been used simply because it hasn’t cost Fukuda anything in royalties. Another sore point (but one which Death Tube can’t be blamed for), is that the English subtitles often can’t keep up with the ‘viewer comments’, which flood the screen as the murders take place - as an English-language viewer you’ll feel as though you’re missing out on a the important voyeuristic element of the film.


Death Tube is a strong amateur effort from a filmmaker you feel is having a wonderful time putting his ideas onto the screen, but doesn't yet have the experience to know how to handle them. It feels like somewhat of a wasted opportunity that the main premise is blown in the first thirty minutes, and the rest of the film tries to live up to its influences instead of forging its own new ground. LOZ

REVIEW: Blu-ray Only Release: Death Note 1 & 2

Film: Death Note 1 & 2
Release date: 20th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 262 mins
Director: Shusuke Kaneko
Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Asaka Seto, Shigeki Hosokawa, Erika Toda
Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: 4Digital
Format: Blu-ray
Country: Japan/USA

An epic cinematic adaptation of Tsugumi Ohba’s smash hit manga. A commercial and critical success on release, Death Note and its sequel Death Note: The Last Name were to prove that translating the energy and invention of manga to live action isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

A promising law student and son to the chief of police, Light Yagami feels that justice doesn’t’t reach the wicked as swiftly as he would like. When Light discovers the mysterious Death Note, a book that kills the owner of any name written in its pages, he seizes an opportunity to set the world right.

Befriending the Death Note’s previous owner, a death god named Ryuk, Light proceeds to take the lives of criminals that have slipped through the cracks of the justice system.

Given the name ‘Kira’ and revered by the public, Light soon lets the power of the Death Note corrupt him.

In an effort to catch the mysterious Kira, the police call on the help of L, a master detective who employs unorthodox but brilliant methods to flush Kira out.

Light and L lock wits and leave a trail of bodies in their wake, including Light’s girlfriend Shiori, who he sacrifices to escape suspicion and get closer to L.

Meanwhile, a famous popstar/TV personality named Misa receives her own Death Note and the companionship of death god Rem. Misa sacrifices half the years of her life for the death god’s eyesight, which allows her to see the name and remaining lifespan of any person. A devoted follower of Kira, Misa begins a killing spree to bring them together, hoping that they can cleanse the world of evil together.

Light, now on the Kira investigation team, seeks to find out L’s real name once and for all and defeat his nemesis, leading to a climactic showdown as Light and L confront each other in a battle of wits…


For many fans and critics, it would seem folly to try and translate the energy and visual splendour of a great manga into live action - there will inevitably be something lost in transition - which is why it so surprising that the Death Note films are such a success, capturing the spirit of the source material perfectly, and largely avoiding any dilution of that signature energy.

Although adapting Ohba’s work shouldn’t have been that daunting, given the technological capability of cinema these days, it’s still impressive that director Kaneko has not only managed to recreate faithfully the events of the manga, but also give his films their own distinct identities.

This unique feel is largely down to a great cast, particularly the central pairing of Fujiwara and Matsuyama, excellent in both films as the Machiavellian Light and his brilliant nemesis L. Fujiwara, so effective as a good guy in film’s like Battle Royale, manages to make Light’s quick decent into malevolent evil convincing and sympathetic.

Fujiwara is the perfect foil for Kira’s schemes, a modern day Sherlock who eats nothing but junk food and has a penchant for cruel and unorthodox investigation methods. L is the best thing about both films, frequently stealing entire scenes just by eating marshmallows on a stick.

Erika Toda also impresses as Misa Amane, the self-titled ‘Kira II’ and second Death Note recipient. Her role as Light’s biggest fan and eventual partner in crime is somewhat threadbare, but her tragic backstory, and the treatment she receives from both Light and L highlights Misa as one of the story’s’ only sympathetic characters.

Perhaps one of the biggest strengths of both films is translating successfully some of the more fantastical elements of the Death Note manga, specifically the death gods Ryuk and Rem. Ryuk, who is given a meaty role in both films, is a computer generated character of such accomplishment, he can be mentioned in the same breath as a certain ring hungry ex-hobbit. His appearance is faithfully recreated, and Shido Nakamura’s voicework gives him a manic energy - even more so than his exaggerated, anime-like mannerisms.

Less focus is placed on Rem, Misa’s death god, but equal attention to detail can be seen in translating his image directly from page to screen. Also, in one of the stories many depictions of light versus dark, Rem acts as a kinder counterpart to Ryuk, disinterested in the pain and suffering of others and bound to his honourable duty to Misa. Both shinigami are great value and fit comfortably in with the human characters. The films are so successful because they capably marry the story’s fantasy element with a hip, real world charm.

There are some gripes, and chief among them is the uneven pace of both films, steamrolling through some plot strands while ambling through others. Why, for instance, is Light’s descent into evil explained away with a brief flashback, while the investigation into ‘Kira’ is stretched across the entirety of the first film? Surely more focus should have been placed on the genesis of the story’s villain. Later on, Misa’s subplot appears sporadically throughout the second film, giving little chance to engage with her character - she goes from obsessive and deadly Kira fan to vulnerable torture victim in only a handful of scenes.

These minor pacing quibbles aside, both films steadily gather momentum leading to satisfying (if a little murky) conclusion. The Last Name’s final stretch suffers from some unnecessary plot convolution, throwing one too many Kira’s into the mix, which highlights the inability of the writers to cram every manga plot strand in competently. Overall, the story of Light Vs. L is one worth experiencing.


Essentially a trite observation of the true nature of justice, the story of Death Note has enough parallels with modern cultural climate to maintain a certain relevance. Shusuke Kaneko presents a faithful adaptation of Ohba Sugumi’s manga, and the accomplished ensemble cast inhabit their roles perfectly. KT

TRAILER: Blu-ray Only Release: Death Note 1 & 2

Film: Death Note 1 & 2

REVIEW: DVD Release: Meat Grinder

Film: Meat Grinder
Release date: 23rd August 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Tiwa Moeithaisong
Starring: Mai Charoenpura, Anuway Niwartwong, Wiradit Srimalai, Rattanaballang Tohssawat, Duangta Tungkamanee
Genre: Horror
Studio: 4Digital
Format: DVD
Country: Thailand

Revenge is often a dish best eaten cold. Just ask Fruit Chan, director of Dumplings (2004), originally conceived as one chapter of a three-part horror omnibus (Three… Extremes) before he served up more of the same dark satire, just in larger portions, which regrettably made the bloated feature-length even harder to swallow. Tiwa Moeithaisong’s Meat Grinder follows a similar recipe, and now, having finally found an overseas distributor, ominously appears on our menus for the first time.

A young man, searching for his fiancé Aoi in 1970s Thailand, confronts her employee Buss (Mai Charoenpura), a troubled woman haunted by memories of her horrific upbringing. Pushing Buss too far, he is brutally dealt with, tacked to a wooden floor by his fingernails, left to marinade for the foreseeable future. Whilst he bravely tries to escape, a riot on the streets outside her home offers Buss a unique business opportunity – the lifeless body of a man dumped in her noodle-cart could be the missing ingredient to her new business venture - her very own noodle shop, just like the one her mother once owned.

Using her old lady’s unconventional recipes and techniques (grinding human flesh to make the perfect meat), her noodle dishes are an instant success. The restaurant quickly becomes one of the hottest eateries in town, introducing Buss to Attapon, a young man who offers her the warmth she’s always craved. But when his desire to seek out his missing friend gives rise to a grim discovery, Buss’s past catches up with her again - love and happiness replaced on the specials board with bloody retribution…


Horror films have always been full of nasty, uncongenial imagery - a lot of the most foul, unrepentant violence aimed at women. While American studios continue with this trend, bombarding us with torture porn, copying the success of the Hostel and Saw series’ with pale franchises, world cinema has responded with much more meatier offerings - and quite literally.

In the striking opening sequence to Meat Grinder, we watch the grainy footage of a victim being dispatched, chopped and prepared in gloriously sadistic detail. Five minutes in, the young man searching for his fiancé has his leg hacked off before being nailed to the floor in a gruesome, ‘look away now’ close-up. Director Tiwa Moeithaisong certainly knows how to get right down to business, leaving the viewer in no doubt as to where this one is heading.

Or perhaps not; because while the film is genuinely stomach churning throughout (Buss’s landlord and his flunkeys foolishly demanding unpaid rent the highlight), Moeithaisong has managed to sidestep the torture-porn tag by infusing the blood and gore with an engaging story, intertwined by a clever plot structure that enables to hold the viewer’s interest.

Flashbacks aren’t just used to explain Buss’s harrowing past; by skipping several scenes before retelling them out of sequence, suspense is created by disorientating the audience but never baffling them. This is largely down to the striking visuals, jumping from colour to monochrome and then back again - edited seamlessly so that the viewer never loses their bearings. The only criticism with the constant use of flashbacks is that by the final act, you could be left completely drained by the countless atrocities Buss has had to endure since childhood.

Complete with atmospheric visuals (Buss’s world is more blue than Pandora) and a soundtrack that switches from romantic love songs to very uncomfortable haunting melodies (the opening score cannot be bettered), Meat Grinder is surprisingly crafted with an extreme amount of care - its love montage halfway through dares to include such deliberate audience provocations, such as blood and mutilation, mixed with kinky nudity and loving massages. Yet it works, and is one of the most memorable scenes - revealing a twist that, although much too familiar these days, packs a timely emotional punch.

Mai Charoenpura handles her role superbly with a brooding menace; she’s at her most interesting before the slightly disappointing and ever so predictable finale (the repetitive giggling of Buss’s inner thoughts also begin to grate). Then there’s the character Nid, a neighbour’s daughter who foolishly begins a relationship with Attapon not long after his break-up with Buss. Despite little screen-time, she somehow fashions more than enough empathy in time for the final act. Maybe it’s because she is easy on the eye or because Buss is a complete fruitcake, but it cleverly moves the story on to the next level, and just as you start to wonder quite where this film has left to go.

Admittedly there’s a ring of familiarity about almost everything on offer here, and how Buss manages to keep the place a secret from the police is a question oddly left unanswered, but it never ends up coming off as torture porn for lazy horror junkies. Instead, it manages to grip from its first shot.


Relying more on mood rather than over the top visuals, this is a return to the intelligent side of exploitation horror. Refreshingly marinated with an intriguing story to give it flavour, and coupled with lashings and lashings of gory mayhem, Meat Grinder is an absolute treat from start to finish. DW

REVIEW: DVD Release: Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler

Film: Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler
Release date: 26th July 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 130 mins
Director: Tôya Satô
Starring: Kenichi Matsuyama, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yuriko Yoshitaka, Tarô Yamamoto
Genre: Thriller/Drama/Action
Studio: 4Digital
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler is adapted from Nobuyuki Fukukoto’s multi-million selling manga series Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji, and follows the fortunes of a down on his luck layabout coerced into entering a series of increasing bizarre games of chance.

Tatsuya Fujiwara (Death Note, Battle Royale) takes the lead role as Kaiji, a mid-twenties graduate seeking solace through alcohol, as he stumbles through life working in a dead-end job that fails to stimulate his mind or improve his social standing.

After another soul destroying day, he is visited by an attractive dark-haired debt collector named Endo (Yuki Amami) and informed that he is responsible, as acting guarantor, for a missing friend’s sizeable loan. The choice given to him is to spend the next decade trying, without any resources, to honour the loan payments, or to board the Espoir gambling cruise ship for a once in a lifetime opportunity to clear his debt and gain wealth beyond his wildest dreams.

Initially the game (“paper-rock-scissors”) seems like a straightforward three card contest based on little more than luck. However, strategy soon moves to the forefront when the contestants realise that their very lives are on the line. Many panic, plead and cheat, as dark personality traits emerge in a desperate frenzy of self-preservation. Unlike Steve McQueen in the Cincinnati Kid or Newman and Redford in The Sting, Kaiji is not a naturally gifted card player, yet he is different - he learns, he adapts and, after initially falling prey to an unsavoury trick, he develops a seemingly unbeatable tactical game plan.

However, the whole scenario is an elaborate con designed to force the men into a lifetime of servitude to a shadowy underworld organisation. Once under their control, Kaiji must risk everything and enter two further competitions or die a slow death caused by enforced manual labour...


Director Toya Sato, who started his career making shows for Nippon Television, spends an almost unbearable amount of time between the first gambling scenario and the second trying to set up a fairly simplistic idea: Gangsters need a labour force, con desperate men, offer some hope of freedom through high stack gambling games – simple. Yet, it takes half the movie to properly establish the plot. It is certainly a case of less would have been more; as cutting thirty minutes from the dull opening half would have improved the over feel and pace of the movie.

At times, Toyo Sato seems to think he still has the luxury of his television background by setting aside a sizeable chunk of the movie’s running length attempting and failing to properly develop the characters. Kaiji begins and ends the movie as a good intentioned yet annoying character; Tonegawa (Teruyuki Kagawa) the right hand man to a one dimensional white bearded gangster leader is nothing more than cartoon character bad guy; and with one exception (Endo), there are no substantial character arcs. Even then, Endo’s morph from ‘baddy’ to ‘goody’, and partially back again, is clearly signposted.

The actors often overact to the point of distraction, while the director appears to show a lack of confidence in their ability by utilising internal monologues to display emotion rather than subtle facial expressions. This method is detrimental to the otherwise rollercoaster pace of the movie’s keenly crafted second half, which is kick-started into life by a genuinely tense race between two hotels on a suspended steel beam during a thunder storm. From this scenario onwards, Toya Sato plays to his strengths, and an underlying talent comes to the fore.

The final gambling scenes are exciting and uniquely executed with intelligent camerawork emphasising the heightened emotion, as it shifts between characters, picking up each facial tick and psychological nuance from actors now, thankfully, well and truly reeled in by a director relishing in his task. Second guessing tricks and tactics becomes a joy during a finale that is the epitome of fingernail biting edge-of-your-seat cinema.


If you can survive the ill-judged opening salvo this develops into an exciting piece of throwaway moviemaking. MG

REVIEW: DVD Release: Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess

Film: Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess
Release date: 28th June 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Shinji Higuchi
Starring: Jun Matsumoto, Kippei Shiina, Masami Nagasawa
Genre: Action/Martial Arts
Studio: 4Digital
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess is the big-budget remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1958 classic Hidden Fortress from Shinji Haguchi; a man who is renowned for blockbuster-type movies and as such provides few surprises as he ups the action and romance this time around.

Assisting him are Masami Nagasawa and Jun Matsumoto as the young leads, with Hiroshi Abe taking on the role played (and nailed) by Mifune Toshiro in the original, and overall the cast proves to be an extension of the philosophy that Haguchi brought to this project: young and dynamic as they are.

The film is set (and filmed) in feudal Japan (not the feudal part) and begins with the near destruction of the Akizuki clan by the more violent Yamana, an event which forces the young Princess Yuki of Akizuki into hiding. She is accompanied by the General of Akizuki and all-round badass Rokurota, a samurai who has sworn to escort her back into friendly territory as soon as possible. However, to achieve this they must pass directly through the Yamana territory while carrying treasure destined for their homeland, a situation which introduces the young Tazeko (Matsumoto) and the idiotic Shinpachi (Daisuke Miyagawa) as the bumbling commoners…


The story is a classical one, as would befit something from 1958: princess needs help, loveable rogues team up with stoic samurai to help, trust issues ensue, bad guys die, (almost) everyone lives happily ever after. This is not a difficult plot to follow. However what made Kurosawa's original such a great film was, amongst other things, an attention to the people of the land rather than just to the heroes. Indeed, the inclusion of two characters from the lower orders of society helped establish a discourse for the often-silent inhabitants of the conflict-ridden territories that tales such as this are set in, something which inspired George Lucas when writing the Star Wars: A New Hope to tell the story from the point of view of his two lowliest characters. In this vein, Haguchi remains faithful to the original by revolving his storytelling in most part around Tazeko and Princess Yuki – for whom Nagasawa did a good job in creating a role that did not draw too heavily from the tired old 'heroine' or 'damsel in distress' clichés - as an unlikely and occasionally unbelievable romance springs forth. To his credit, though, Haguchi does not venture too far down the romantic path, and in doing so reigns himself in from one of the weaker facets of his interpretation of the story, but ultimately it proves a nice addition.

Notwithstanding, while Kurosawa certainly wanted the broader 'people' to be a focal point of his film, he also went to great lengths to establish Rokurota as a dependable and stoic character, and an incredibly cool one at that. And while Toshiro's performance proves to be beyond Abe, the latter still manages to turn in a solid performance as the unflinching and unblinking (quite literally, the man just does not blink) warrior. On the other side of the fence, we have Kippei Shina playing the almost ludicrously evil yin to Rokurota's yang as Lord Takayama, and his performance really helps to subtly shift the film’s tone in the direction that Haguchi seems to want to take it: family fantasy, rather than serious piece. That's not to say the story isn't serious, or that serious issues are not confronted, just that there are so many caricatured characters in this film that it feels more like Princess Bride than Seven Samurai.

The problems with Hidden Fortress: The Lost Princess are – to its credit – pretty much worn on its sleeve: on one hand Haguchi attempts to faithfully remake Kurosawa's stunning original, and on the other he tries to forge these borrowed ideas into something that is unquestionably his. The end result is a film which, at two hours long, sags in places, and sometimes doesn't seem consistent. The setting and costumes are brilliant, but the music (the last song is just ridiculous) and screen transition (screenwipes worked for Kurosawa and Lucas, they do not work for Haguchi) seem frequently incongruous, and a couple of key points in the story don't really make very much sense. Having said that, what Haguchi, his cast and crew have achieved here should be lauded for what it does well as much as it should be criticised. Abe may not be as good a Rokurota as Toshiro, but he's still hard as nails. Miyagawa's Shinpachi may occasionally flirt with being annoying, but the exchanges between himself and Tazeko are crucial to establishing the underlying theme and adding some comic relief to a film that is pretty low on laughs.

Cinematically speaking the film is well shot and features some very well choreographed fight sequences, including one on horseback which was difficult not to sit up for. Moreover the choices of location are sometimes stunning.

How this film was rated as a 15 certificate is beyond me, as it features very little blood, and the violence that is present is no worse than that seen in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. It is fantasy violence at worst, and as such I feel the film’s certificate will unfairly stop some of the people who would most enjoy this film from seeing it: children. Indeed, Haguchi seems to have attempted to turn Hidden Fortress from a serious classic into something perhaps a little bit more palatable for the family, without losing any of what made the original so special.


Hidden Fortress: The Lost Princess is ultimately a fun film to watch, and not a bad attempt at updating a classic. Not an unmitigated victory, but not far off. JD

REVIEW: DVD Release: Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl

Film: Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl
Release date: 15th March 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura & Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Starring: Yukie Kawamura, Takumi Saito, Eri Otoguro, Jiji Bu
Genre: Horror/Action/Comedy
Studio: 4Digital Media
Format: DVD
Country: Japan

The emergence of a new Yoshihiro Nishimura film is a giddy moment for fans of Asian cinema. The 2008 title Tokyo Gore Police was a gore fest with a satirical tongue in its cheek, and a message referring to the potential dangers that exist within the capitalist world. With that in mind the emergence of Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl from the directors editing suite was anticipated as a chance to enjoy a fantasy world with ultra cartoon violence and at the same time ponder some of the deeper questions that have been on the mind of the gore lover.

Monami (Kawamura) is a newly arrived exchange student to the school with a stained past and a thirst for more than simply starting a new life. Having caught the eye of Jyugon (Saito) in one of their many crazed classes together, the couple feel the flicker of new love sparking their teenage desires. The problem comes from the character Keiko (Otoguro), who, along with her gang, has pressured the love-struck Jyugon to be her boyfriend. It is the subsequent battle over Jyugon’s affections which triggers the crimson war that is Vampire Girl (Monami) Vs Frankenstein Girl (Keiko)…


With a title like the one this film carries you would be foolish to expect anything of serious content or merit. Like Tokyo Gore Police and The Machine Girl its goal is to be easily accessible and entertaining, with a fantastical story that has little actual narrative, but is high on visual excitement. If you’re lucky, there’s a subtle core message that is there to be taken, or not, depending on your preference. But with Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl what is delivered is a completely different monster.

The film instead contains some of the sociological in-jokes that lived within The Gore Police, such as the wrist cutting competitions, but instead foolishly embraces these passing statements, and attempts to drag the laugh out over the film’s running time. In one scene, a young pretender to the wrist cutting throne loses their hand from constant hacking. It’s neither funny nor horrifying; rather the cherry-soda looking blood, which gushes with a ferocity and capacity hitherto unknown in medical science, distracts the viewer from any dramatic effect.

Most of the actors perform admirably in their characters, without having to truly test themselves thanks to the poor dialogue and soap opera style direction they were receiving. The character of Ganguro girl (a Japanese girl who had surgery to become African) was painfully unfunny, and, more so, unwelcome - instead of a socio-political message this was straightforward racism. It echoed an era of cinema that the world is supposed to have moved on from, and was the one genuinely uncomfortable element of the film amidst all the wrist cutting, blood spilling and throat biting.

Narratively, the film was a void, and with such a rich background to tap from in the vampire and Frankenstein mythologies, it’s simply unforgivable that they went out of their way to disregard conventions that a cinema audience has accepted as laws of their creatures. It is also highly frustrating to watch when there’s no sign of any attempt to even create a subversive mythology. The filmic narrative seemed to have been quickly ditched in favour of an MTV music video style of direction, allowing the director to have ample amounts of pointless, distracting bloodshed repeatedly, with very little reference to its purpose.

82 minutes is not a long time. But continuous drawn-out blood spilling pieces in succession, with no overarching direction, made it feel like an eternity. No cohesion, and the lack of a focused direction was so painfully obvious at times that it seemed like Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu (co-director and writer) had divided the film equally in order to play a cinematic game of one-upmanship, all to the detriment of their ever increasingly frustrated audience.

The one saving grace, rather fittingly for a feature length music video, was the soundtrack. Heavy amounts of Japanese jingle friendly pop and cyber punk that in any other film would be a negative (due to its clunky overwhelming placement) came as a welcome distraction from the filmic mishmash occurring on screen.


Asian cinema is an extremely rich market that is constantly reinventing itself and pushing conventions for the sake of a better end product, but this film drags the genre back ten years. DL

REVIEW: DVD Release: 20th Century Boys: Complete Saga

Film: 20th Century Boys: Complete Saga
Release date: 31st May 2010

Certificate: 15

Running time: 437 mins

Director: Tsutsumi Yukihihko

Starring: Toshiaki Karasawa, Etsushi Toyokawa, Takako Tokiwa

Genre: Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Mystery/Fantasy

Studio: 4Digital

Format: DVD

Country: Japan

20th Century Boys is adapted from the highly popular sci-fi manga by Naoki Urasawa. With the series’ three films released in just twelve months, it was a truly brave exercise with so many fanboys ready to pounce on any shortcomings.

Chapter 1: The Beginning Of The End. In 1969, Kenji, an elementary school kid and his friends built a secret base during their summer holidays. They fantasized about having to fight villains who were out to conquer the world and wrote their ideas in the Book of Prophecies. Years later, in 1997, Kenji becomes a convenience store manager and leads a regular life after giving up his dreams to become a rock star. His sister has run away, leaving him to bring up her daughter, Kanna. His mundane life is suddenly turned upside down when one of his old classmates dies mysteriously and an entire family in the neighbourhood disappears. At the same time, a religious cult and its mysterious leader, Friend, emerges and a strange chain of events duplicating exactly what is described in the Book of Prophecies follow. Is this the beginning of the end of the world? Who is Friend? Soon Kenji and some of his old classmates are being dragged into events which will change everything.

Chapter 2: The Last Hope. The year is 2015, Fifteen years after the world is nearly destroyed, people now believe that Kenji and his friends were satanic terrorists and Friend, the mysterious cult leader, is worshipped as the savior of the world. Kanna, Kenji's niece, is now in high school, and she resents that the history textbooks tell a fabricated account of the fateful day. She is forced to participate in the ‘Friend Land’ program to be re-educated when she is deemed to be anti-social. While in the program, Kanna uncovers clues to Friend's real identity, and the shocking discovery of The New Book of Prophecies!

Chapter 3: Our Flag. 3 years after the events of Chapter 2, Friend predicts the end of the World will occur on 20th August. Our heroes must join together once more, enter the walled city of Tokyo, save humanity and finally unveil the true identity of Friend...


20th Century Boys is a mammoth effort, adding up to over nine hours of screen-time. The story takes place over decades, and takes in countless characters, which, at times, are difficult to keep track of - although it starts off quite inconspicuous.

We are introduced to Kenji Endo, who has recently had to give up his position as guitarist of a popular rock band to look after his mother and niece after his sister mysteriously ran away. The put-upon Kenji manages a convenience store, with his niece Kanna always on his back, while his mother reads the paper aloud while minding the till. However, Kenji’s mundane existence is about to change in ways he couldn’t possibly imagine. Things start small – the discovery of a weird symbol etched on walls, which is oddly familiar - before the disappearance of whole families from the neighbourhood, including that of an eminent professor of robotics.

20th Century Boys is shot in a very low-key style, as if we’re watching a soap-opera, with lots of interiors and tight claustrophobic shots. However, the style opens up as the story develops, taking in more and more elements, while the flash-backs to 1970 are given the idyllic feel of an endless summer.

The whole trilogy’s momentum hangs on the central mysterious identity of Friend, and his Machiavellian schemes for world domination. The initial chapter lets you think you’ve figured things out, but then pulls the rug from under you in the closing moments. Chapter 2 deepens the mystery, as it becomes clear the man we thought was Friend may have only been a lackey - or maybe not.

20th Century Boys is packed to the gills with characters. Luckily each usually comes with a handy bit of exposition to remind you, and filling in what they’ve been up to while off-screen.

Although based on a manga series, don’t go into this expecting wall-to-wall action – even with the promise of Giant Robots! There are a number of decent action sequences throughout, but most of the running time is taken up with confrontations and revelations about the past.

The production design of the series is excellent, made to reflect Friend’s fragile state of mind - chapter 2 opens in the year 2015, and Tokyo looks pretty different with the sky filled with airships and the existence of Friendland, a Disney-gone-mad rehabilitation centre. Chapter 3, set in 2018, shows Tokyo redesigned back to its look in 1970.

You could form a comparison with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy – both feature a disparate group of individuals who separately try to take down an oppressive regime. 20th Century Boys also shares one of that trilogy’s main criticisms – the ending, which culminates in a cathartic epilogue which plays out over the end credits. However, stay tuned because there is another fifteen minutes which finally brings closure to the whole story.


An incredibly compelling story, which spans generations and draws in myriad characters. 20th Century Boys is a wonderful example of live-action manga. MOW