Casshern (2004) February 27, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Kazuaki Kiriya
Set in the future, a giant war has left the society of Eurasia a polluted wasteland. One geneticist, Dr. Azuma, has the idea for the ‘neo-cell’; a treatment which can regenerate humans and thus create a fully populated society again. But lack of government interest forces him to go to a sinister branch of the military to conduct his research. There, the neo-cells are developed until something unexpected occurs – a whole group of mutants are created: the neo-humans. Exiling themselves, these regenerated people decide that they are the future and that the current population should be eliminated. All that stands in their way is Casshern, Dr Azuma’s son, regenerated by neo-cells himself and the only person strong enough to face the army alone.
It sounds like a bizarre fantasy, but at its centre lies a film about the horror and futility of war, played out through a futuristic sci-fi setting. It’s packed full of special effects, notably using the green screen background techniques employed by the recent Star Wars movies. This dominates the film at times, although it is based on an anime series and embraces many techniques from anime in its execution. At 140-minutes it’s also slightly overlong, and has the habit of bouncing around a bit both in terms of pacing and story.
The CG work is excellent however, and gives the film a very specific stylish cinematography. Western cinema so often tries to capture the essence of effects work like this, but it’s clear that Hollywood haven’t got it quite right yet (see: Ultraviolet [review]). Obviously, a lot of thought has gone into the choice of shots, and the anime-inspired style has come out looking like it should. You could even say the visuals are a little over-produced in some sequences, but that would probably be nit-picking.
Where the film falls down for me is in its failure to connect some of the emotional dots. Part of the greatness in this movie comes from the fact that it tries to show its ‘evil’ characters in a human light (although they believe themselves not human). Unfortunately, so much more time is spent showing the painful side of our ‘hero’ character, Casshern, that the neo-humans get less of a redemption when their time finally comes.
So while you might be thrilled by some of the large-scale action pieces, there’s little left to enjoy outside of that. Which is a shame, because at least it’s trying to do something different, even if this filmmaking style has been employed in other flicks such as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City. The potential for a great movie is definitely there, just add a tighter storyline and clarify the characters motives a bit more, because like so many other sci-fi movies have shown, SFX will only carry you so far.
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