As Captain Marvel and Shazam hit the skies from opposing sides of the DC/Marvel showdown, see how, at one point, they both had the same name.
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Title: 20th Century Boys 1: Beginning of the End (2008)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
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Toshiaki Karasawa | ... | Kenji Endô |
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Etsushi Toyokawa | ... | Otcho |
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Takako Tokiwa | ... | Yukiji |
| Teruyuki Kagawa | ... | Yoshitsune | |
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Hidehiko Ishizuka | ... | Maruo |
| Takashi Ukaji | ... | Mon-chan | |
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Hiroyuki Miyasako | ... | Keroyon |
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Katsuhisa Namase | ... | Donkey |
| Fumiyo Kohinata | ... | Yamane | |
| Kuranosuke Sasaki | ... | Fukubê | |
| Shirô Sano | ... | Yan-bô / Mâ-bô | |
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Mirai Moriyama | ... | Comic Artist |
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Kanji Tsuda | ... | Moroboshi |
| Takashi Fujii | ... | Friendship Party Promotor | |
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Hanako Yamada | ... | Friendship Party Promotor |
In 1969, Kenji, an elementary school kid and his friends built a secret base during their summer holidays. They fantasized that they had to fight villains who were out to conquer the world and wrote them in the Book of Prophecies. Years later in 1997, Kenji becomes a convenience store manager and leads a regular life after giving up his dreams to become a rock star. His boring life is suddenly turned upside down when his old classmate dies mysteriously and an entire family in the neighborhood disappears. At the same time, a religious cult and its mysterious leader, Friend emerges and a strange chain of events duplicating exactly the events described in the Book of Prophecies follow. Written by Noel Kardaris
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Apparently, millions of Japanese are willing to worship a man in a mask who only talks about his childhood... and apparently, the hero of his childhood is Kenji, so one would imagine that all these idiots would leave Mr. Friend behind and go and worship Kenji instead. Right?
Nope. Instead, this cult's followers burn each other alive, blow up airports and have developed a lethal virus that completely drains the human body of all blood. Hey, I'm not opposed to daft plots when they're amusing, but 20th Century Boys pretty much lacks humour, as "mysterious" people point Kenji - the film's protagonist - in the right direction so that he can play a game in which he may or may not get to save the world.
Yeah, it's that dumb. And upon figuring out that all these terrorist attacks taking place are being scheduled by the events of a comic Kenji drew as a kid, instead of taking the said comic to the authorities on finally finding where he left it some 25-30 years ago, Kenji instead runs over to a friend's house, digs out his old guitar and jams out in the morning's early hours!
But that's perfectly logical, since Kenji once aspired to be a glam-rock star.
With a running time of well over 2 hours, I can't recall the last film I watched during which I spent almost as much time looking at the clock. Unfortunately, the sheer humdrum and stupidity of the film all got too much to bear and I eventually turned it off. I now waste even more time over this crap-fest by advising other IMDb users of its sheer awfulness.
Avoid.