(movie review)This movie came out the first year I was in Japan and I remember seeing previews for it everywhere at the time.
I remember reading a review in one of the English language newspapers that went something along the lines of:
"This is the Japanese film industry's attempt to compete with Hollywood. Unfortunately they've chosen to try and compete with Hollywood by ripping off Hollywood. This film is a blatant rip-off of the Matrix and Terminator movies."
Which is all true (in fact on the DVD commentary the directors even admit their influence from Hollywood movies such as "The Matrix" and "Mission Impossible"). And yet after having endured sappy love stories, pretentious anime, and exploitative films in my quest to break into Japanese cinema, I quite enjoyed sitting down and watching a mindless action flick. Hollywood rip-off or not.
The action sequences are decently well done for a Japanese film. (I know that sounds derogative, but lets face it, foreign films just don't have the money to compete with the special effects or even extensive choreography of Hollywood. Despite all this the film still manages to get in some cool action scenes.)
My main complaint is that they end up being somewhat repetitive. The good-guys have a device from the future that allows them to speed up (like the Flash in the comic books) and they end up using it to get out of just about every tight spot.
There are numerous plot holes in this film, even by the standards of mindless action flicks. And, as this is a story involving time travel, there are also lots of arbitrary time travel rules that are standard with these kind of stories. You just have to forgive a lot of this.
The acting in this film however is really good. The hero does a good job of looking cool (which is all you really want from an action movie hero). The actor playing the villain really gets into his role. One of those characters who does such a good job of acting evil. There's a bit of over-acting, but I always figure the villain is allowed to over-act in movies like this. And especially considering she was only 14, the actress who plays the girl from the future does a fantastic job.
The movie loses a couple points from me for throwing in some sap at the end (complete with the usual violin music accompaniment) . But overall I enjoyed this flick.
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