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Reviews
Continuum (2012)
Interesting concept but zero character depth
This story of this show reminds me a little of the recent Sleepy Hollow TV-show, except in reverse. Instead of a guy from the past showing up in modern times and partnering with a female cop to kill demons, it's a female cop from the future teaming up with a dude in modern times solving cases to do with science. And while it succeeds at the points where Sleepy Hollow fails, it kind of fails on the points which Sleepy Hollow does fairly well.
Sleepy Hollow did an OK job of creating interesting, if a bit naively constructed, characters. But a lot of the story was pretty inconsistent, and seemed to suffer from the problem of trying to drive the plot forward without any regard to whether it actually made sense with what was going on with the characters or not. This show however manages to weave an decent plot, but completely falls flat in the department of the characters.
I'm five episodes in and none of the characters so far have any kind of personality. The main characters "I used to be a mom in a perfect family and now I'm not"-shtick gets old pretty fast. While admittedly sad and everything, it doesn't really make her stand out in any way. And her partner hasn't really been given any more personality than "good looking male cop dude". So far the most interesting character is the nerdy hacker dude who lives in his moms basement (well, barn). It's a pretty tired stereotype, and I kind of wonder how he could afford to buy all the super high tech equipment he uses, but I don't mind that so much. He's got the whole thing going on with his tech-hating step dad and estranged half brother, which actually seems possible to lead to some interesting character development. (Maybe the whole show should've been about him... ? )
We get some vague back story about how in the future the corporations bought out the government and now terrorists are upset about that and regularly blow things up. Except their motivations for doing so are pretty unclear. From all that we're shown, the future is a pretty idyllic place where people live happy in their Hollywood-style families.
And when we're introduced to the terrorist characters, we learn absolutely nothing about their personal motivations for being terrorists. They mostly seem to be in it for the ride because they like guns, or something. They aren't even very convincing as terrorists. Just regular people with a habit of pointing guns at things every now and again. Because they're evil, or something.
Which brings us to the "dissident" terrorist, who's crimes apparently were so terrible that he was going to be sentenced to death in the future along with the rest of his group. But then they all arrive in the past and we learn that he doesn't "really" care that much for whatever it is that the rest of the guys want to do. (Just enough to be a key figure in killing millions of people?) He just wants to be rich and live out his life like a playboy. Seems like an odd character trait for someone who's supposed to be against big corporations taking over the world? And then, right out of the blue, he's so much of a good guy that the main character even entrusts him with the care of her young grandmother and unborn mother?
That said, the whole idea of a cybernetically enhanced cop going around solving crimes in modern times while also unraveling some kind of plot related to her own time is a pretty neat idea. Too bad the show doesn't deliver on it's promises.
Goemon (2009)
Crappy CGI, incoherent plot
This review will probably be a bit short since it was some time since I saw the movie when I'm writing this and I don't have everything in fresh memory. But my core concerns remain the same anyway.
Well. First off. I don't mind movies with lots of CGI. In fact I can quite enjoy it. But if the CGI doesn't look convincing and is way too obvious even when it's clear that it's not supposed to be, then it's a bad thing. You could instantly tell when something was computer animated, and it stuck out like a sore thumb. The movie had some pretty moments. Especially in the scenes with the princess. But I'd say this is pretty much the only thing this movie had going for it.
The characters were incredibly one dimensional and mostly lacked any sort of personality. I mean, the princess that the main character was supposed to be protecting must've been the most pointless female lead ever. The only thing she did in the entire movie was look pretty and get into trouble so that the hero would have someone to protect. And as I understand it the entire plot of the movie was supposed to revolve around the fact that her innocence shouldn't be allowed to be harmed in any kind of way. Because, well... that would be horrible, right? Bohoo. I actually felt sorry for her. Poor girl that's not allowed to take any action on her own part and is treated like some porcelain doll that gets put up on a shelf so that she don't get hurt.
Which brings us to the plot of the movie. This was such a mess that I don't even know where to begin. The entire first part of the movie starts by building up to one crucial point in the story. The scene on the ship when the emperor is supposed to get killed. This would've been the perfect place to end it. Every thread (at least that I could keep track of) had been resolved and it really looked like the final moment. The emperor falls a hundred meters with a noose around his neck and, seemingly, dies. Some other guy, I don't remember who, gets shot in the head and, also seemingly, dies. Yay. Everything is fine. But then suddenly, by some weird twist of logic, the emperor didn't die from getting hanged from a hundred meters up in the air. And the other guy didn't die from getting shot in the head. There's no explanation why. We're just supposed to accept it. That's just plain bad and lazy script writing.
Suddenly the movie needs to rebuild its entire plot from the ground up, because it already killed what little it had to begin with. From that point everything just becomes a mess. It eventually leads up to two factions fighting against each other about something that's never really touched upon. But at least there's an epic battle coming. And then the main character shows up and... does something, for one reason or another. (I might have missed a few details here, like I said it was some time ago that I watched it, but that's really the gist of it.) Then we have the action scenes. Well. There's some flailing about with swords. But it ultimately feels really pointless. We're not given any reason to care about the action, because it's so obvious the main character is immortal. He has thousands of soldiers against him, but none of them ever so much as scratches him. *Yawn* Oh well. The best part of the movie was the ending credits because it was finally over, and the brilliant Rosa by Violet UK was playing.
Azumi (2003)
Silly plot but good action sequences
The movie kind of left me pretty skeptic from the very start. I mean, if this guy is so concerned with making peace, why on earth would he train 10 assassins to go and kill a bunch of people? It's not the smartest way to make peace I've heard of... And then he tells them to kill each other so only half is left. And they obey, like mindless zombies. Which is really odd because in the previous scene it was obvious they were all a bunch of fun loving and innocent kids. And then soon afterward they're not traumatized in any way, in stead they're joking around and laughing like the rest of us. Not to mention the girl later on who almost gets raped and has all her friends killed before her very eyes. But she just smiles and carries on like nothing happened.
The fight scenes were OK. But they got pretty tedious after a while. 2 hours and 20 minutes is pretty long for a movie with no plot to talk about. And you never really knew who you should want to win, because pretty much all the characters were ass holes anyway. There was nothing that made the 'bad guys' seem like bad guys. And there was nothing heroic about the heroes either. So basically the movie was just a an excuse to have a bunch of guys get killed on screen with some nice action choreography slapped on top. The only obviously bad guy in the movie was that white clad dude. But he was also the weakest character, simply a typical anime stereotype.
I give the movie a six out of ten, feeling pretty generous. Because I did still enjoy the action, and there were some touching moments, however surreal they felt.
Ayakashi (2006)
Three story arcs where only the final one is worth watching
I began watching this series thinking it would be great to see some classic Japanese horror as the name implied. The good score here on IMDb was what drove me the most i guess.
The first story is about a woman who's betrayed by her husband, dies from being poisoned and wants revenge. It was all really dragged out. Only the final episode was descent and the animation over all was really bad. You could see that they tried to make it look just like an old Japanese painting which was a nice touch yet the animation and overall quality just didn't make things work out for the best. The arc also included a documentary, sort of woven into the story, about this tale that apparently is a classic Japanese theater play. I'm sure it had been a lot more interesting had the production been better though.
2/10
The second arc gets a little better. It looks much more like classic animé. Character design is so so, but it works. You are presented with a castle haunted by forgotten gods that eat humans. A man from a town near the castle meets the princess of the castle and they fall in love with each other. Complications arise. The story is pretty generic and you've probably heard it all before.
5/10
The final chapter is another matter though. Although the artistic style might be a bit hard on the eyes at first with bright colors every where and it's hard to know where to look. But it's unique in it's presentation and also very beautiful at the same time. Also the animation is top notch. The story might seem a bit cliché but is really well executed. A group of people in what i can guess is Japanese 18th or 19th century are trapped inside a house where a Demon Cat is about. The only one who can stop the demon cat is a traveling medicine salesman who's also in the house. But to do that he must unravel the mysteries of how the demon came to be in the first place. There are some interesting intrigues and it gets pretty exciting at times. This chapter i would recommend anyone watching.
8.5/10
Mushishi (2005)
Slow paced nature experience you'll never forget
Well, it's not exactly a nature experience since it's a TV-series. But the thing is that mushishi puts all its' force in depicting beautiful Asian scenery full of life. And at the core of that life are the 'Mushi'.
Mushi are not animals, and they are not plants. Mushi are closer to life than anything else on the earth. And those who gathers lore about the mushi and knows how to treat them are the mushishi.
I actually got the feeling of watching a horror movie when i saw this, the only thing was that there was no horror. Still, the mood was there, but in a kind and gentle way.
The series follows a mushishi named Ginko and his travels and missions in the land. Human emotion is put aside as a theme, and love is more a fact than something that involves you in the story. I don't know if this is something coming from the authors own view of life, but it makes room for a feature where nature is the emotional basis, and it stands strong on the feelings that you get from marvels that lie within the silent whisper of the wind among trees.
You encounter characters that all are affected by these mushi. The first one is a boy who can draw anything with his right hand and it springs to life, another one is a man chasing after a rainbow and even a human that is born from a seed. Many of the stories are built on things we notice in nature around us but find it hard to explain, like shooting stars, the end of the rainbow and the fact that a third of your soul remains within your pillow when you leave bed as it is where all your dreams live.
The series moves in a slow gentle pace, where the music never gets too eager and nothing ever gets too exciting in manners of rush or panic. It might somehow even be sleep inducing, but in a good way, like the swaying of the trees or a cold snowy night where everything is silent but the sparkling fireplace.
Of course, it's up to anyone to have their own thoughts about it, but I think that the series wants to tell us that there is more to life than just being human. If you look around you, and look where there are no cars and high buildings, you'll notice lots of life that fills you up and effects you in ways you never think of. There is beauty in more than just you and me.
I was expecting to find some sort of greater story that would unfold towards the end of the series, but that never came. May happen the stories got more dramatic towards the end, but they never stopped being told in the same way as always. There was never any certain resolution to the series, only the soft mushishi music with its' hypnotical drums, and when you had watched the last episode you knew that everything in the world of the mushi would keep on going as it had ever done before. I never got the feeling of saying goodbye to characters i'd miss, but was happy to have been able to come along on the journeys in this world so full of life and wonders.