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| Casshern |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 141 |
| Public Rating: 8.83 (46 votes) |
Director: Kazuaki Kiriya |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Science Fiction/Drama |
Year: 2004 |
| Writer(s): Kazuaki Kiriya, Dai Soto |
| Distributor: Shochiku Studios |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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Ambitious in scope, but marred by a muddled narrative and poor visual effects, Casshern, Co-written and directed by Kazuaki Kiriya, a commercials and music video director, is one of three recent films to be filmed on virtual backlots (the other two being Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the forthcoming Sin City). Supporters of the virtual approach to filmmaking (i.e., minimal real-world sets, with actors filmed against green screens, and CGI environments and other visual effects added in extensive post-production) are obviously enthralled by the technological possibilities, but in at least in two instances, Casshern and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the computer animation still falls short of the sophistication necessary to allow mainstream audiences to suspend their disbelief from the opening to the closing credits. To Kiriya’s credit, when [i]Casshern[/i] shifts its focus from technology fetishism to the layered relationships between the principal characters, Casshern (occasionally) rises above the standard comic book-to-screen adaptation.
Set in a bleak, retro-futuristic dystopia, a vision heavily influenced by Blade Runner and Metropolis' epic monumentalism, Casshern takes little time to introduce us to its anti-war message. As a portentous voice-over narrator informs the audience, the Eastern Federation has been in almost constant war for 50 years with its neighbor, Europa. A final, successful offensive has left the Eastern Federation, itself ruled by a military-industrial oligarchy, in sole possession of the Eurasian landmass. Fifty years of nonstop warfare using conventional and unconventional weapons, however, have irrevocably despoiled the environment, leaving the inhabitants of the Eastern Federation prone to sickness and genetic mutation. It is, in short, a Pyrrhic victory.
Enter Professor Kotaro Azuma (Akira Terao), a scientist desperately attempting to find a cure for his wife's terminal illness. Azuma proposes to harness what he calls a “neo-cell,” a mutated cell that, if his theories are correct, can be directed to heal diseased tissue and internal organs. Rejected by the governing council, Azuma is approached by the representative of a secret faction, part of the defense ministry, to fund his project. Professor Azuma's son, Tetsuya (Yusuke Iseya) has volunteered to serve in the military, against his family's wishes. Although the war has been won, a resistance to the Eastern Federation still exists in the peripheral areas. Tetsuya leaves his girlfriend, Luna Kozoki (Kumiko Aso) behind, placing duty and honor to his country above love and family. Tetsuya's wartime experiences, rendered in black-and-white, expose him to traumatizing moral dilemmas. In an effort to save another soldier's life, he intervenes, shooting an accused collaborator. Soon thereafter, Tetsuya dies in combat.
Professor Azuma's experiments (contained in vats filled with red fluid and human body parts), on the verge of failure, unexplainably result in the resurrection and rejuvenation of his test subjects (who themselves have been kidnapped from the outlying areas) who exhibit superhuman abilities. The resurrected, later called “Neo-Sapiens,” are immediately targeted for extermination by government troops. The few who escape find themselves (literally) in a wilderness and later a high mountain pass. In what appears to be repeating trope, a [i]deus ex machina[/i] intervenes to show the Neo-Sapiens a long-hidden mountain fortress, complete with an inactive, underground robot factory. The Neo-Sapiens, led by their white-haired, red-caped leader, Burai (Toshiaki Karasawa), decide to turn their newly discovered robot army against their human persecutors.
Enter Professor Azuma, mourning for his son, the Neo-Cell experiment, and the new threat from the Neo-Sapiens. Turning Frankenstein, Azuma revives his son to combat the new menace. The Neo-Sapiens, however, have one principal weakness. Their new superhuman powers strain their physical limitations (their prone to bleeding and physical pain). Azuma outfits his son with near-invincible body armor, courtesy of Professor Kozoki (Fumiyo Kohinata), Luna's father. With the body armor and his new mission in place to defend the world against the Neo-Sapiens, Tetsuya is re-christened “Casshern,” so named for an ancestral guardian spirit. Casshern then pursues the four remaining Neo-Sapiens, including Burai, in successive (less than spectacular) battles, as well as discovering the connection between the Neo-Sapiens, the outliers, and the humans in the Eastern Federation, which, in turn, leads Casshern's discover of his own symbiotic connection with Burai (one of the film's rare instances where a scene resonates with authentic emotion).
In Casshern, however, authentic emotion is in short supply. Kiriya prefers a message first (via anti-war sermonizing), story second approach, making the characters one-dimensional mouthpieces for his simplistic ideas about war and violence. Casshern is also marred by its over-reliance on a literal deus ex machina to solve narrative conundrums, culminating in a denouement that, if anything, follows the faux transcendent climax of Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture (one of the weakest films in the Star Trek franchise) far too closely. To be fair, it’s likely the Japanese range of narrative plot devices might be broader than our own. In addition, Casshern is itself a remake of a 1970s Japanese, animated TV-series little known in the United States. Japanese animé tends toward the ambitiously ambiguous, often leaving major plot points unresolved as a series ends its run on television. Narrative ambiguity may also be present in the source material itself. Casshern's problems, however, also extend to the inconsistent CGI, strongest when used to supplement real-world sets, and weakest when used for elaborate action scenes, especially those scenes involving giant robots. A more effective film could have been made if the filmmakers had chosen to combine traditional 2-D animation with 3-D computer animation (instead of combining live-action with CGI).
Overall, despite occasional character-centered moments that reach beyond Casshern animé origins and into the expression authentic emotion (or a reasonable approximation), Casshern is best recommended for fans of Japanese animé and science-fiction. For everyone else, expectations should be suitably lowered (7/10).
© Mel Valentin, 6th November, 2004
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