What can I say about Casshern? The movie is essentially a beggar parading about in the clothing of an emperor. But beneath all of the CGI-enhanced effects and varied bits of an alternate world that Casshern creates, it fails to deliver any cohesive storyline (albeit a very thin one). The movie is completely disjointed, there is absolutely no character development, and the pacing is choppy and disconnected at best. The different camera techniques used here make the movie seem more like a music video than a 2-hour feature length film, and these techniques get old fast.
From what I can tell, our lead man Casshern was once Tetsuya, the son of a doctor involved in "neo-cell" research. However, he hates his father (we're not really sure why) and decides to fight in the remnants of a 50-year war with Europa, the loser of the battle against the Eastern Federation. His fathers research is not going so well, when suddenly something happens which spawns a mutant humanoid race from his experiments, so aptly dubbed "neo-sapiens". Some of these neo-sapiens escape (kidnapping Tetsuya's mother in the meantime) and go to the North, to a so-called sector 7, to set up their stronghold. Meanwhile, during the war, Tetsuya dies; his father is so overcome with grief that he brings his son back with neo-cell technology, thus re-making him as a superhuman. This leads Tetsuya on the path to becoming Casshern. Plot doesn't sound TOO bad, huh? Well, unfortunately, there's not much else by way of story line for the remainder of the film, aside from clichéd progressions which lead to the inevitable apocalyptic climaxes followed by the "why must humans destroy each other?" questions so often found in Anime (not surprisingly, this movie is based on an old Japanese Anime series of the same name). And considering the movie has a runtime of 2hrs 20min, the story is definitely spread far too thin.
The only things that keep me from giving this move the lowest rating are the sometimes breathtaking effects sequences, some of which are quite memorable. However, since this film is essentially spawned from an anime, even some of these sequences tend to meander towards the absurd and cartoonish. But I digress: there are some very interesting representations of future cities, weapons and assorted devices that keep the movie from being unwatchable.
I would suggest this movie to anyone who is either a fan of this anime series or enjoys some serious CGI-aided visual stimuli. If you like MTV, you might be a big fan of this short-attention span, audio-visual bombardment...there is certainly plenty of eye candy. But if you enjoy a riveting storyline, deep and thought provoking characters and themes, and, basically, anything else that turns a series of images (beautiful or not) into a cohesive movie, you probably will want to steer clear of this...it is basically an expensive fiasco, and not surprisingly I heard it was recently voted one of the worst movies of the year in Japan.
From what I can tell, our lead man Casshern was once Tetsuya, the son of a doctor involved in "neo-cell" research. However, he hates his father (we're not really sure why) and decides to fight in the remnants of a 50-year war with Europa, the loser of the battle against the Eastern Federation. His fathers research is not going so well, when suddenly something happens which spawns a mutant humanoid race from his experiments, so aptly dubbed "neo-sapiens". Some of these neo-sapiens escape (kidnapping Tetsuya's mother in the meantime) and go to the North, to a so-called sector 7, to set up their stronghold. Meanwhile, during the war, Tetsuya dies; his father is so overcome with grief that he brings his son back with neo-cell technology, thus re-making him as a superhuman. This leads Tetsuya on the path to becoming Casshern. Plot doesn't sound TOO bad, huh? Well, unfortunately, there's not much else by way of story line for the remainder of the film, aside from clichéd progressions which lead to the inevitable apocalyptic climaxes followed by the "why must humans destroy each other?" questions so often found in Anime (not surprisingly, this movie is based on an old Japanese Anime series of the same name). And considering the movie has a runtime of 2hrs 20min, the story is definitely spread far too thin.
The only things that keep me from giving this move the lowest rating are the sometimes breathtaking effects sequences, some of which are quite memorable. However, since this film is essentially spawned from an anime, even some of these sequences tend to meander towards the absurd and cartoonish. But I digress: there are some very interesting representations of future cities, weapons and assorted devices that keep the movie from being unwatchable.
I would suggest this movie to anyone who is either a fan of this anime series or enjoys some serious CGI-aided visual stimuli. If you like MTV, you might be a big fan of this short-attention span, audio-visual bombardment...there is certainly plenty of eye candy. But if you enjoy a riveting storyline, deep and thought provoking characters and themes, and, basically, anything else that turns a series of images (beautiful or not) into a cohesive movie, you probably will want to steer clear of this...it is basically an expensive fiasco, and not surprisingly I heard it was recently voted one of the worst movies of the year in Japan.