Review of Casshern (2004) by Andrew L — 24 Oct 2011

The best live action Anime I have ever seen. This is an emotional masterpiece of a movie. The ratings given to this movie truly do not depict its great achievements. Those who criticize the story is hard to follow are not true anime fans nor do they understand the complexity of the story. I understand it completely except the whole mechanical lightning bolt thing. Anyone who says the plot is all over the place do not understand that the main character Tetsuya is psychologically torn between wanting to be a hero and do whats right and for being a tool or weapon for Mankind's own greedy heartless purposes. Thus, the main characters rage and unstable state mirror the hectic pace and action of the movie. I also seriously doubt that many of the critics and even the public remember the original anime and it's subsequent re-imagined anime Kasshan Sins will remember that Casshern himself is a kind of anti-hero in respect that he wants to do good but only creates death and destruction all around him they nailed this perfectly in the live action movie. The things that make this movie so great besides the special effects is the incredibly emotional connection the audience has to the characters and the outstanding dramatic soundtrack by Shiro Sagisu who has done many great anime soundtracks from Macross, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Bleach.

I highly recommend picking up any of Shiro's music even if you are not an anime fan. My only complaints about this movie are the overuse of so many different camera filters which gets annoying and makes you think you are watching an MTV movie and distracts from the story. My other complaint has been said many times by critics that the movie is overly long the last 45 minutes seems like a whole other 2-3 hour movie onto itself. Overall though this movie is worth seeing more for the emotional story that tugs at your heartstrings and shakes you to the very core to question what it really means to be human than it is for the abundant CG action scenes but those are pretty good too.