#ryuhei kitamura

[danishexmachina]

LoveDeath (2006, dir. Ryuhei Kitamura) poster by Shintaro Kago

[dare-g]

Alive (2002)

[carcosahouseparty]

Absolute same energy..

single funniest line in all of anime

[hannahwatcheshorror]

MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN (2008)

If you say you are watching this movie for anything other than the hilarious title you are a liar. This weird art type film (or at least that's how it played in the beginning) follows the life and times of a photographer who stumbles onto, well, the Midnight Meat Train. Creepy and strange right up to the part where the ending made a feeble attempt to explain anything that happened over the course of the film. The finale was just a (metaphorical) train wreck. Nothing makes sense, it's like they ran out of time and just threw something in.

⭐

We are all watching it because it sounds sexual, let's get that out of the way. If you say you are watching it for Brad Cooper you are a filthy liar, he is nothing more than a pleasant surprise. BC is a photographer so he stalks folk around New York (as one does) and starts to follow a mysterious man. Then there is a train. Then it's midnight. Then there’s meat. He gets a sick shot of the dude that is honestly gorgeous to behold but then Brad becomes off. A vegetarian, he eats the steak off his friend's plate. Also the scary man has barnacles that he will occasionally scrape off and put in a container. Why? Fuck you, that's why.

A ton of suspense and build up lead us to a ride on the midnight meat train where bodies are stripped of imperfections (like those pesky teeth) and fed to subterranean monsters (who are picky enough to want their humans butchered for them), Brad sacrifices his girlfriend (for no reason) to become the new MMT butcher (for no reason) to feed the mole people because plot? I was kind of buying into it and then they just took a big old poo at the end and now I'm completely out. Will be happy to never watch again. 

[alephskoteinos]

I remember seeing Ryuhei Kitamura's Aragami years ago, and I just did it again, but all that time I didn't realise that fucking Paul Gilbert from motherfucking Racer X did the ending credits track for that movie!

I went wild realising that!

[spielkritik]

Lesenswert: Game Awards, Oneechanbara-Movies, Godmode-Roman, Moonwalker, Perfect Dark Zero, MGS: The Twin Snakes

Da hat’s direkt mal wieder eine Woche länger gedauert, aber das mit voller Absicht. Letzten Mittwoch stand nämlich der erste Beitrag unserer neuen GASTSPIELER-Staffel an, und der Freitag war auch schon der letzte Freitag des Monats – und damit Quest-Log-Zeit. Um den Beiträgen nicht die Luft zum Atmen zu nehmen, wollte ich nicht auch noch Lesenswert dazwischen einzwängen. Bevor in gut einer Woche…

[lupincentral]

Have you heard the news?

Lupin III is diving into the world of live action once again, with Jigen Daisuke ‐ a spin-off film releasing “worldwide” on October 13th, 2023, exclusively on Amazon Prime Video!

Tetsuji Tamayama, who previously portrayed the character in the 2014 released feature film, will be returning to the role of Jigen.

Yoshimasa Akamatsu (BD ~Akechi Tantei Jimusho, Corpse Party: Book of Shadows) has produced the script for the film, and Hajime Hashimoto (The Detective Is in the Bar franchise, AIBOU: Tokyo Detective Duo, Shimauma, Signal) is directing.

In preparation for his reprising of the role, Tamayama states in an interview with Natalie that he has watched the Lupin the IIIRD spin-off film Jigen’s Gravestone, and hopes to bring this cooler, more mature version of the character to television screens come October.

Details on the plot are currently scarce - however, the Natalie article mentions that it involves Jigen searching Japan for the world’s greatest gunsmith, after his trusty combat magnum is in need of some TLC (and said gunsmith just happens to run a rather curious watch shop)…

More details on the film are to be revealed closer to its release date. For now, you can check out the films first trailer embedded below, and its announcement over at website Natalie.

After Lupin ZERO wrapping up at the end of last year, and VS. Cat’s Eye releasing in January, a live action Jigen spin-off is not where I expected TMS to go next with the Lupin franchise. It is, however, in my opinion, a welcome diversion from the norm.

I would be lying if I did not first meet the announcement with some scepticism, though, mostly due to the series’ less than stellar track record of live action adaptations (the amazing 2017 Inspector Zenigata spin-off drama aside). Taking a moment to think back, I quickly realised that while the live action film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura did not win the hearts of fans back in 2014, it did do one thing right - the casting.

Shun Oguri as Lupin III and Tadanobu Asano as Inspector Zenigata were big gets for the film, and both appeared to take their appearance throughout it seriously. Meisa Kuroki played a gorgeous, cunning Fujiko, with Go Ayano trying his best to bring the stoic samurai Goemon to life. It was Tetsuji Tamayama, however, that best looked the part. Fans on social media were swooning over his Jigen as soon as the character portraits were revealed, with some saying he was made for the role.

Despite issues with pacing and its overall narrative, all of the main cast members represented their anime / manga counterparts well, and if there is one positive to take away from that film, it would be their performances.

This gives me hope for Jigen Daisuke - with fresh writing staff and a keen new director to the franchise on board, with an actor we already know can do the character justice, both Amazon and TMS may be on to something special, here. Now slightly older and more experienced, I have full confidence Tamayama will exceed that of his already good performance as Jigen from 2014.

I’m looking forward to finding out how this comes together. Keep an eye out for a full review of the film come October, which I will aim to post up on lupincentral.com a few days after its release.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Weeks in Review (September 10-30, 2023)

I adore Godzilla Final Wars, but it's a movie with an identity crisis, unsure whether it wants to be headlining a Toho Champion Festival or mesmerizing American teenagers at a mid-aughts multiplex. @spacehunter-m's Final Wars 2004: The Year We Make Corn-Tack gives it a strong tug in the first direction, whittling the runtime down to 77 minutes and replacing most of the music and sound effects. She was inspired by Space Warriors 2000, of all things; as she put it, both films are "largely comprised of nonstop, monotonous action." As in that bizarro Ultraman compilation film, the kaiju trash-talk each other. It makes you wonder why Ryuhei Kitamura didn't at least bring back the speech bubbles from Godzilla vs. Gigan. Kaiju fan edits are rare, and this is in a class all by itself. Download it here.

Shigeru Kayama's novelizations of Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla Raids Again are out—hopefully the first of many to come. My copy only arrived on Saturday, so I haven't had the chance to read the whole thing yet, but I've made it through Godzilla. It's interesting to see Kayama, who wrote the initial treatment, take another swing at the story after the film was finished. He puts back moments like Godzilla eating a cow and attacking a lighthouse, and is also more overt with the wartime allusions. There's an incredible moment where Dr. Yamane muses that studying Godzilla and learning his secrets could be Japan's way of redeeming itself after "caus[ing] a great deal of trouble to people throughout the world." Note that these are novella-length, so much less in-depth than the novelizations of American Godzilla films you might be used to (Godzilla Raids Again is less than 80 pages). The book ends with an afterword by translator Jeffrey Angles contextualizing the tales.

Godzilla: War for Humanity continues to be a standout IDW miniseries. There's a new and very weird monster in the second issue, plus a no-nonsense Mothra (she tries to recruit Godzilla to fight Zoospora by shooting him in the back of the head and dragging him into the ocean in front of Minilla).

I've also got to mention the solicitation for another Godzilla Rivals installment, due December 20. Nola Pfau is writing, Megan Huang is illustrating.

Jen Onça is not excited to start her new, fast-paced fast-food career at Minilla Burger, but she'd much prefer a mundane day to the sudden return of Megalon! The monster brings destruction, trapping Jen in a forgotten lab deep beneath the restaurant with only the half-built form of Jet Jaguar to help her get out! She must repair the robotic defender to save herself and the city, but first she needs to escape the rubble trapping her in this tense adventure!

Yuzo the Biggest Battle in Tokyo, Yoshikazu Ishii's follow-up to Attack of the Giant Teacher, has also been picked up by SRS Cinema. No release details yet. I can't really speak to the film either, since it screened at the same time as Yumiko Shaku's panel at G-Fest, but as you can see from the poster, it's set during the pandemic.

The GAMERA -Rebirth- Gyaos has joined Godzilla Battle Line as an unusual sort of swarm unit. Your first summon of the match calls forth two sub-adults, and by the fifth summon you're sending out two sub-adults and three adults, still for four energy. They're probably the best swarm in the game, though still highly vulnerable to AOE units like Godzilla '01. I'm having fun with them in the Challenge Battles.

Notzilla, one of the sharpest kaiju comedies out there, is unexpectedly getting the graphic novel treatment. Mitch Teemley is adapting his own screenplay, with art by Zumart Putra. The comic is already finished, although I'm not clear on how folks who didn't back the Kickstarter (which wrapped on September 11) will get it. Useless trivia: the terrific cover above (one of four) is by Ben Dunn, who wrote the How to Draw Manga book I poured over in middle school.

After Troll shattered Netflix streaming records (according to Netflix), it's not super surprising that the company wants a sequel. Priority one: coming up with a title that's not Troll 2. Screenwriter Espen Aukan and director Roar Uthaug will both return.

Toy highlights of the past few weeks:

After confusing everyone by teasing its silhouette the day before April Fools', Tamashii has fully unveiled an S.H.Monsterarts Godzilla '72, a rare Showa figure from the line. It comes with two heads, one of them bloodied (see above). Due at the end of February.

After finally running out of ways to repaint their mold of Hedorah's Perfect Stage, Bandai is making a Movie Monster Series figure of the kaiju's Landing Stage. A Godzilla Store exclusive, it'll be released October 25.

After over two years, Funko is releasing a trio of Godzilla Singular Point Pops. Hopefully they go all-out with this show—it's not like there's any other plausible way for a Satomi Kanahara figure to exist.

[romanceyourdemons]

no one lives (2017), when compared to director ryuhei kitamura’s hollywood debut the midnight meat train (2008), is a much stronger production around the same stylistic lines. combining the slick and psychological sensibilities of kiyoshi kurosawa and takashi miike with the gore-fest sensibilities of wes craven and sam raimi, the film presents the “victim becomes the hunter” premise of last house on the left (1972) and i spit on your grave (1978) through the lens of the hyper-slick, hyper-capable, hyper-charismatic psychopath serial killer paradigm. i personally found the combination to be somewhat trite, considering that the appeal of the precedent films lies in the unexpected transformation of the genuinely wretched figure into the unexpectedly vicious, and the survival horror atmosphere clashes somewhat with the jigsaw-like utter control the serial killer is purported to have over his victims. more than that, the “killer in love with his victim, whom he seeks to transform into something inhuman like him” subplot merely telegraphs itself to the audience, rather than presenting any character moments the audience can get their teeth into—exactly the point of greatest weakness in the midnight meat train (2008). but this film learns from that one’s weaknesses: it does not make unsupported philosophical pretensions, and it keeps its plot streamlined and driving in pace, relying more on moment-to-moment suspense than plot-long mysteries. the overall product is cohesive and compelling, albeit with a somewhat factory-made feel. no one lives (2017) shows a director much more comfortable in his work, and for that i congratulate him

[qedmirage]

Godzilla Final Wars: What Are We Even Doing Here

Godzilla: Final wars, released in 2004, is a film where this happens:

As mutant supersoldier Shinichi Ozaki realizes his full potential as a super-duper solider called a "Kaizer", with "the power to control the universe". What? Where are we? Let's back up.

Godzilla: Final Wars, released in 2004, is the final entry in the "Millenium" subseries of Godzilla films, those released in 2000-2010. Short millennium! It's the first and only Godzilla film by director Ryuhei Kitamura and it is extremely early 2000s action movie. It's a bad movie, and a bad Godzilla film. And yet, it's kind of a blast to watch? The back half of this film is so stupid. Peak comedy moments abound. You'll hear the dumbest line in the universe followed up seconds later by a somehow, even dumber line. So, meta stuff. This film is something of a send-up of Invasion of Astro-Monster (1956) and Destroy All Monsters (1968), films where aliens steal various kaiju and Godzilla has to beat them all. It's even using the aliens from Invasion of Astro-Monster, the Xiliens, with some slight updates to their design:

Xiliens in Final Wars (left) and Invasion of Astro-Monster (right)

Aliens show up, say they're friendly, take monsters away. Then it turns out they're evil, they unleash the monsters, and the humans need to have Godzilla beat up all the other monsters. Shrimple as that. However, this is a 2004 scifi action movie, and it's being directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, who first rose to prominence with a film Versus about yakuza fighting undead in a forest on a hellmouth. Very early 2000s action schlock. Thus, alongside the more standard Godzilla fare of a united world response to kaiju attacks, we get this:

And, right after the first establishing kaiju fight, we get a several minute training fight scene between two mutants in The Octagon:

Because god damnit, we are going to have our martial arts fights and you'll like it! Get used to these mutants doing martial arts fights because it happens a lot.

So the film's plot. Mutants have an extra DNA base called M-base, which is present in all kaiju except Godzilla. Our protagonist Ozaki has it as well, and the mothra fairies refer to it as a 'dark power' within him. He also gets berated for not going as hard on his opponents in training as he should, because he has wishy washy things like 'feelings' and 'empathy'. This information is structurally delivered way worse in the film but you get what his arc is from that, right?

Ozaki and the other mutants commit the first kill of a kaiju by infantry in the Godzilla franchise, defeating Ebirah with a cheesy one-liner while a truly ass soundtrack plays in the background. I'm sorry, I know the (three?!) composers worked hard, but this sucks. Original Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube became so enraged at hearing the soundtrack to Godzilla vs. Biollante he un-retired himself specifically so he could make the next soundtrack better for the next film, and Biollante had a soundtrack miles better than whatever we're calling this.

Anyways, aliens show up, replace some world leaders with imposters, the protagonists slowly figure it out, shoot said world leaders, and then the aliens give up and decide to use their M-base related mind control on all the mutants and kaiju to destroy the earth. This plot takes about 30 minutes of the film and is delivered in a very Xtreme way.

It's important to hold your gun sideways when shooting a body double of an important world politician. The film drags here, I'll be honest! But eventually it's over, the second in command alien guy shoots the main alien guy, they start the violence plot, etc. High points to me include the above side-guns and the televised reveal of evil aliens showing cuts of people the world over panicking and also this couple, who look only mildly concerned:

This is one of your signs that this may not be a very serious film. Fully an hour in to the movie the protagonists go down to antartica to free godzilla, where we get to see some of my favorite minor characters in a godzilla film:

The world's exploding and the two guys in the Godzilla Monitoring Base down in Antarctica are just chillin. Reading a book on Zen, having an espresso and a toasted croissant, it's great. Love them. Did you know this is a two hour movie? Anyways, the protagonists wake up Godzilla (while one of the monitoring guys wonders: "Is this a wise decision?") and what follows is nearly non-stop action as they pull Godzilla's aggro towards the alien mothership, with all sorts of kaiju showing up to stop them. And I gotta say, this part of the film? Kinda rocks. They're fitting in Way Too Many Kaiju into a film and so Godzilla is just absolutely dumpstering these monsters as it continues the march to the final battle. American Godzilla shows up and is beaten in under a minute, while the main villain keeps making faces like this:

inevitably followed shortly thereafter by:

I just really like it for some reason, like this guy is trying so hard to be cool. So hard. This happens like three times. Anyways, the protagonists break into the alien ship, all their redshirts get killed, there's some big dumb action scenes with funny shots:

while outside Godzilla and Mothra fight Gigan and the alien's mysterious new monster:

"Monster X" is a fun one. In the first phase of the fight it actually does grappling stuff against Godzilla, kind of mimicking the throws big G was using to dumpster all those earlier kaiju. It's fun that the martial arts godzilla film let the monsters use martial arts on each other.

Ozaki gets told he's a Kaizer, they do a whole 'you should join me' thing, you can guess how that goes and then he and the main villain do a super saiyan fight while the rest of the crew tries to escape. Oh, and the world leaders who got replaced before show back up again, with the UN Secretary-General having the dumbest set of lines in the entire film (a high bar!):

To be clear, the last time we saw this character, he was on a plane that exploded midair.

"I managed to escape somehow". He spends the rest of the film holding two rayguns. He's the UN Secretary-general. It's great. There's a part where a katana deflects laser beams. Captain Gordon puts his katana aside so he can fistfight the aliens instead. What are we doing here again? The fight between our two super saiyans is mixed in with Godzilla fighting Monster X, and just as the aliens are defeated, Monster X does a phase transition:

the audience reactions were priceless.

They fight, Ozaki lends his spirit energy to Godzilla through the ship's guns-Yes, it can do that. Why? Stop asking questions, don't you realize what movie this is by now-Godzilla wins, Godzilla goes right back to fighting the humans, before Minilla gets it to calm down and walk off into the sea. Roll credits.

THE BAD:

Alien bodysnatcher plot

Basic script flow

Soundtrack

highway martial arts fight too long

The Octagon martial arts fight too long

A guy does a kamikaze suicide attack and it works

The nipple covers our hero wears for the first half of the film

THE GOOD:

Comedic insanity

Monster X phase 1

the dumbest lines you've ever heard in a movie

Godzilla absolutely demolishing the toho franchise is surprisingly fun

The EDF having more than just white people and japanese

Captain Gordon macho grumbling in english and dressing like a WWII admiral

The reaction our main villain makes after Legendary Super Saiyan Ozaki punches him:

You can just hear the inner monologue of 'fair, you get one'

Is it a good movie? No. I highly recommend it. Watch it with a group of friends. ...Godzilla 2000's probably better, though.

[thetriphibianmonster]

Godzilla Film Watch: Week 5

While I could have made this the last week of the watch, I decided to include the anime trilogy in the watch since they did have theatrical releases in Japan. Credit to Wikizilla for the poster images.

Day 29: Godzilla Final Suits (2004) In a twist of irony, the 50th anniversary film is the first Toho entry to cast aside all continuity with the original film, abandoning the partial reboot system that had defined the series since the 80s. Final Wars brings back many old faces, but they are all stripped of their original context, forming a setting as wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle. The film itself follows suit: Godzilla's quick destruction of his American doppelgänger would have landed better if he didn't mow through the rest of the kaiju cast nearly as quickly (poor Hedorah). The inflated roster must jockey for precious screen time, both with each other and with the excessive human scale fight scenes. Ryuhei Kitamura is a talented director, but I think Kamen Rider would suit him better than Godzilla: here his heavily stylized sensibilities feel out of step with the rest of the series. The more anthropomorphized monster designs such as Gigan and Monster X feel off at 120m, and the extensive wire fu does little to sell their weight. The truncated kaiju fights also feel at odds with the prior films: I think Godzilla works much better as an underdog than an unstoppable juggernaut when facing his peers. The mutant storyline is also a strange place to take the series for its golden jubilee. It starts out somewhat promising, expanding on the Kiryu Saga's themes with the mutant's role as living weapons paired with the EDFs fascist imagery. I think the intrigue following the Xiliens' arrival is the strongest portion of the film, with the subversion of the United Nations institutions and those same fascistic elements. Unfortunately these ideas fizzle out after the Xiliens go mask off, and Ozaki's eventual brainwashing is dispelled by an external tool rather than his internal desire to be more than a weapon. Instead he resolves to not be cattle, replacing the more interesting themes with a generic "indomitable human spirit" message.

Day 30: Godzooky (2014) A decade on, and still nothing quite conveys the sheer scale of daikaiju like Gareth Edwards did. The camera is always set at a human vantage point, with vast spatial depth. CGI is used to give monsters an inertia they could never achieve as people in suits. Godzilla and the MUTOs wade through human structures like they were sand castles and send naval vessels careening in their wake. Some of the later entries approach this sense of scale, even match it occasionally, but none outright exceed it. Beyond the Kaiju, Edwards has a painterly eye for dramatic shot compositions: the HALO jump into San Fransisco is still as fantastic as it was ten years ago. Unfortunately movies are more than just their cinematography. The strongest character is killed off at the end of the first act, and Ford Brody is an unengaging replacement for his father, his only major decision being to destroy the nest. Humanity in general lacks agency in the narrative, including abdication of responsibility for the monsters' existence. Natural disasters can't be controlled, but humans still have a material role in their severity and even initiation, though mitigation measures and anthropomorphic climate change. This film downplays such environmentalist themes, possibly one of the many changes made at the request of military liaison. The US Army now seems to prefer being framed as competent, even if it costs them their monopoly of force, and their positive portrayal robs the film of more biting critique. Still, this film brings a level of subtlety and earnestness to the material that I feel has been sorely missed in the last few Monsterverse films.

Day 31: Shin Godzilla (2016) This is still such a biting satire. I was once more in favor of bureaucracy, but if the last 8 years have taught me anything, it's that the institutions of power have little interest in doing anything constructive. Anno's cinema vérité camera work and painstaking focus on government logistics fully brings us into this world of bureaucracy while maintaining a dry wit about the absurdism of it all. Godzilla himself is wonderfully unique here, approaching realism from an engineering direction instead of the naturalism of the prior film. Like Edwards before them, Anno and Higuchi excel at using CGI to give weight to the King of the Monsters. Godzilla barely notices his surroundings, but causes mass destruction just by moving forwards, sending massive debris flying with a simple step forwards or an errant flick of the tail. I really like how he evolves towards a more familiar shape as the cast become used to him, before starting to diverge again with the introduction of a terrifying new take on his atomic breath. The pacing starts to drag a bit in the downtime after this pivotal scene—the political satire mostly gives way to the still ambiguous mystery of Goro Maki—but these flaws are paltry in the face of one of the best movies in the whole franchise. The themes are compelling, Sagisu's score is sublime, and the cinematography is masterful. There are so many hauntingly beautiful shots over the course of the film, ending with one that will leave you pondering the film for a long time afterward.

Day 32: Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017) When I first saw this I was pretty whelmed, and that hasn't changed much since. I enjoy the novel take on the series and the world building early on. I especially liked the scene where the Exif and Bilusaludo reflect on their initial plans of conquest, and how they were made irrelevant by the sheer power of Godzilla. Unfortunately this seijin face turn gets rolled back in the following films. Likewise, this film's end twist renders much of the prior plot irrelevant, which doesn't help engagement on a rewatch. Haruo's also not a particularly interesting lead: I've seen people claim he's a discount Eren Jaeger, but his vendetta against Godzilla feels like less of a drive for him than the trilogy implies. His interest in defeating Godzilla seems more in service of retaking Earth than a pathologic obsession in the vein of Ahab.

Day 33: Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018). The start of this one is a real slog. The Houta are an interesting twist on the Infant Islanders, but the character dynamics among the human cast are pretty weak. Yuko in particular is gets the short end of the stick, with her childish jealousy over Haruo talking to other women, her unwarranted kiss on her stepbrother, and the gratuitous tentacle attack. I do think the movie manages to pull itself together towards the end. The Bilusaludo get some nice development, building off the control obsession established in Terror of Mechagodzilla and adding a fixation on rationalism over morality. Combine this with the properties of the nanometal and we get one of the better Cyberman stories of the modern era. I like how the Bilusaludo don't betray the United Earth so much as their philosophy ends up incompatible with the other members. This culminates in a pretty intense moral dilemma that manages to wring some pathos out of Haruo for once.

Day 34: Godzilla: Planet Eater (2018) The flawed finale to an equally uneven trilogy. Despite Metphies' prominence, the Exif end up a lot more generically villainous than the Bilusaludo: we only see two members, and both are all in on the death cult. I think their human following needed more setup in the prior films, and despite Metphies' claims Haruo ends up pretty accessory in their plot. Ghidorah is a creatively bizarre take on the three headed monster, but past his wonderfully chilling introduction the movie relies too much on telling rather than showing how unnatural he is. The trilogy's sole kaiju battle is also pretty weak: Ghidorah is untouchable for most of the "fight", and puts up little resistance once his invulnerability is gone. The themes are an equally mixed bag. Urobuchi opts for a radical anarchoprimitivist take on the series usual environmentalist themes, positing that the industrial revolution and its consequences will inevitably lead to ruin. I don't think this message fits well with Godzilla Earth's characterization though. Rather than a byproduct of humanity's environmental depredations, Godzilla is personified as a vindictive avenger in the vein of Battra. He deliberately seeks to exterminate mankind as punishment for the hubris of civilization, but given the way he ends up shaping the environment in his own image he comes across as a self-righteous hypocrite. Giving agency to Godzilla's violence makes him unsympathetic, and Haruo's sacrifice to dispel humanity's hatred feels like it's blaming the victim for fighting back against their abuser. It also ends up fulfilling Metphies' desire: by vindicating the Exif's nihilistic beliefs about the arc of all civilization, Haruo essentially submits to Ghidorah after all.

Day 35: Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) A glorious serving of fan indulgence, but one with a bit more substance than Final Wars. While I have problems with the Ghidorah and Mothra designs, they more than make up for it with personality. Mothra's scrappy underdog status is endearing, as is her connection to Godzilla, and it shocks me how long it took to give Ghidorah's heads individual personalities. Meanwhile Godzilla carries on his battered old soldier persona from the prior film, while Rodan is a delightfully scrungly little bastard. While I wish Desplat's bespoke themes from 2014 could have carried through the series, Bear McCreary's sweeping renditions of Ifukube's classic leitmotifs more than make up for it. Mothra emerging from the waterfall to a triumphant orchestra playing Her Song was among my most sublime experiences in theaters. Dougherty also makes an admirable attempt at continuing Edwards' sense of scale, though rarely with as much success. His impressionistic use of color is a marked contrast with Edwards' naturalism, but both have an eye for iconic visuals. The human cast are an improvement on the Brodys, but are hamstrung by clunky exposition: everyone has to directly state their current emotions and motivation. Unfortunately the film is also poisoned by the irreverent humor that infests modern Hollywood: occasionally it lands but more often it undercuts the genuine love that went into this production. Dougherty at least manages to push through stronger criticism of the US military's belligerence, even if the lower ranks remain somewhat lionized (never have I seen a more complimentary depiction of the V-22 Osprey). He also wrangles the environmentalist themes into something compelling, rejecting both the passivity of 2014 and the nihilism of the Anime Trilogy. Here humans have a clear role in the changing planet, but have the ability to improve by working with its other inhabitants instead of against them. While this film could have easily fallen into the other Hollywood fixation on "going too far", the end of the film instead presents a clear and positive change in the status quo.

[monsterasia-zero]

The Summer Of Godzilla continues, counting down Monsterasia Zero top Goji films every Wednesday and Saturday! This Saturday it’s Godzilla Final Wars, directed by Ryuhei Kitamura

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Remakes and remasters may feel like all the rage right now but in the early 2000’s, they were just as popular, especially on Nintendo systems. Metroid got its NES game remade for the GBA with Zero Mission and Capcom revamped Resident Evil for the Nintendo Gamecube. Not to be outdone, Konami remade Metal Gear Solid, also for the Gamecube, in 2004. Developer Silicon Knights were brought on to update the game, fresh off their critically acclaimed work on psychological horror game Eternal Darkness. New cutscenes were directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, lending a boisterous flair to the proceedings. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes is a slick looking remake, and it shows just how much the technological leap there was between two console generations. But this remake also creates tension in the ways in which it adapts the classic game with these new innovations and polish.

Read more...

[mattydemise]

Please tell us what is your favourite Japanese Horror film, Mr. Aussie Horror?!

‘Versus’ from the year 2000, written and directed by Ryuhei Kitamura. Don’t research or spoil it for yourself, just watch it. It’ll blow your mind.

[outlawvernofficial]

Ruby Rose double feature: The Doorman / Vanquish

Today I have a double feature of Ruby Rose action vehicle reviews for all you Rose Bros: Ryûhei Kitamura's THE DOORMAN (2020) and George Gallo's VANQUISH (2021). One of them is a fun time and one of them is a serious challenge to get through.