Cutie Honey

I remember seeing posters for this in the weeks leading to the cinema release, and well ... Cutey Honey's outfit is pretty darn cute .. I have a figurine on my window that I got with a box of fizzy candy - much to my girlfriend's ire.

Next to ninja's, cute chic's in revealing armour highly rate with me, so I was instantly intrigued. I was familiar with the source material, and the the director (of Evangellion and Nadia fame) and I knew that this film had a very unique visual style, but I still wasn't prepared for what I witnessed when I finally put the disc in the slot and hit play.

This film IS Live Action Anime to the Nth degree! It lives and breaths anime craziness, and over the top silliness. Honey's facial expressions are something straight out of an SD anime. From the opening scene this film is an anime joy - yet live action.

It's a nutty film, and it had me chuckling constantly. I would love to show this to friends of mine, but I know they'd look at me strangely and try and lock me away. Cutey Honey won't be appreciated by everyone, but I think that anime fans, with an open mind will really dig this film.In the back of my mind a voice told me that I was not supposed to like this film, but try as it did, it couldn't pull me away. I was hooked .. right until the end.

It's strange that .. on first look, and without proper perspective, this film look bad. Everyone over-acts, and there are more butt and cleavage shots than you can shake a stick at - very much an exploitative fan service vehicle. Many viewers I assume would get so many bad Power Ranger flash backs that it'd hard for them to keep watching.

Watch it in the right context however and you will see genius! Well maybe that is taking it too far, but Hideaki Anno and the team that worked on this film should be praised for creating the closest live-action rendition of anime I have ever seen. It has all the ingredients, crazy over the top expressions, a VERY cute scantily clad girl, and ultra-surreal bad-guys, including bondage'ish outfits and an androgynous male villain.

It's all there. Until I find out later down the track that the film contained subliminal hypnotising messages, I will say that I really liked this film, but that I still can't really work out why I did so much. Cutey Honey is for anime fans, and I think anyone else would struggle a little to accept this film's wild personality.

Killion

I have to go with the other posters. This was the most amazing and revolutionary action-adventure I have seen since "Road Warrior" way back when! Yes, maybe I sound like a nut after saying that, but the energy from the Fantasia Festival debut of this movie has convinced that I am not insane after all. "Cutie Honey" (the most unlikely action-film title I ever heard or could imagine) deserves to go down in film history as one of the greatest action-adventures of all time. For instance it's 10X better than the Lethal Weapon series, and Quentin Tarantino only wishes he had the talent to create a film like this (rather than steal it).

Then again, since "Hollywood" denigrates films like this? I am not sure what its fate will be. But if it got a US release it could revolutionize the US film industry like nothing people have seen. In the meantime I only hope anyone reading this has a chance to see this amazing film.

It's that F'N good.,

I saw this film at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, right after Blueberry. Holy smokes, this movie is totally awesome!!! Why can't north Americans make cool movies like this? It's super happy and action-packed, and it even makes fun of itself = it's perfect!!! For this vein of movies, Cutie Honey is the best I've ever seen!!!

If you have a vague idea what this movie is about, you'll be blown away by the extremes and humour presented on the screen. It's not serious. But a most excellent treat indeed!

All the acting is superficial, there's a constant(but not tumultuous) music track throughout, all the photography is extreme and the story itself is completely retarded. A lot of the humor comes from making fun of stupid little "cutesy" movies --> also, the sexism is exaggerated too: Cutie Honey behaves in a ... "special" way: always innocently making sexy poses wearing only underwear, etc... All the action sequences are completely over the top, super loud, and mixed with cartoons as well.

For what it is, it's unbeatable.

Taking its cue from similar movies like 'Charlie's Angels' and 'Austin Powers', Anno Hideaki's 'Cutie Honey' is a mixed bag of zany humor, outlandish action, campy acting and psychedelic animation. Based on the cult anime and manga series by iconic Japanese Manga writer Nagai Go, the movie begins with a crowd-pleasing opening sequence that really captures the essence and feel of the 1973 anime cartoon. However, the rest of the movie fails to match up with the awesome first fifteen minutes of the feature.

Sato Eriko is certainly pleasing to the eyes and is absolutely picture perfect as Kisaragi Honey/Cutie Honey, however her constant childlike innocence and carefree attitude becomes somewhat grating during the course of the film. Ichikawa Mikako is also good as Aki Natsuko but unfortunately she too is hampered by the limitations of her character's simplistic and cartoonish characterization.

The action is surprisingly top notch and the so-called 'Honey-mation' (live action footage mixed in with cartoon animation) sequences are really inventive and recalls the flawed movie 'Tank Girl' in some instances.

The movie really bogs down towards the middle with a series of candid scenes of Sato Eriko in a variety of disguises. It was totally unnecessary and was probably done to fulfill the 'Cosplay' (Costume Play) fetishes and fantasies of its target audience.

The movie really gets weird and offbeat when Oikawa Mitsuhiro as Black Claw breaks out in a song and dance number towards the end of the movie for no apparent reason. Perhaps this might have been appropriate in a spoof movie like 'Team America: World Police' but seems totally out-of-place here. In fact Koda Kumi's cameo earlier in film screamed out blatant 'product placement' as she also sings most of the songs for the film soundtrack.

The ending was the biggest disappoint. As with Anno's 'Evangelion' finale, the promise of an exciting, slam-bang finale are quickly dashed and instead we are treated to metaphysical ramblings and pretentious lecturing about the 'meaning of love' and how 'Sister Jill' should embrace love and evolve to the next level.

Being a fan of the 1973 anime series, I really wanted to like 'Cutie Honey' more. It's not a bad film and is at times quite enjoyable. However, I just wish that the movie followed through with the promising beginning opening few minutes and delivered something a bit more rousing and original.

Saw Cutie Honey at the Leeds Film Festival on Saturday... not sure if James Maruyuma had been paying attention until the last half of the movie, because people breaking into song for no particular reason and "metaphysical" (actually psycho-sociological but nevermind) thoughts about love and opening your heart to people are there throughout. The film is 95% very very very silly, with a couple of curveball moments where things get a bit more serious, then right back into silliness and fluffiness again. The film is shot and edited in a very anime-esque way, with extensive use of CG to enhance the stylisation and "cartooniness" that's already quite abundant from the costumes and overacting. In fact, so much effort has been spent making the live action film feel like an animated film that one sometimes wonders why they didn't just animate it ;) The answer is, of course, the super-cuteness of Sato Eriko (though I was actually more partial to Ichikawa Mikako's super-repressed detective character, make of it what you will).

Overall, very very camp and silly fun with a fluffy message about the power of love n' stuff. Not the stuff classics are made of, but worth seeing if the opportunity arises.