simon-47 Reviews

Lovely Rita (2001)

Good but the ending belongs to AKI KAURISMAKI

[18 January 2003]

I saw this film at Cannes Film Festival in 2001 and was very impressed by the ending. However, when I saw Kaurismaki's Match Factory Girl last year, I found that the ending and the movement of the camera picturing Lovely Rita is almost same with Match Factory Girl.

The stories of those two films are different, but when you see the ending itself, you could say they are sharing the same ending.

The film still remains good to me, but the ending belongs to AKI KAURISMAKI

Balance (1989)

Impressive...Very...

[14 January 2000]

I think I have not seen any German animation except this one. This is one of my favorite short films, and if you have a chance to see it, you will find out how brilliant the Director is.

On a flat (in this world, there is only one small flat and five men on it), the five men had to make a balance not to be slipped. When one man wants to go fishing, the other four men also have to do the same thing. It can be total-socialism or other else...like a physically balanced world. When one man picked up a music box, and all of the five men want to hear the music without order, it became unbalanced. They fought each other and one man won by dropping all the other four men under the flat world. But, the survived winner had to stay at the corner of the flat while the music box stayed at the opposite corner, which means the remaining man could not hear the music anymore because he had to make a balance with that box on the flat.

It's thrill to me to see this short but great movie.

You can buy this with other Oscar nominated or winning short animations by DVD.

Spriggan (1998)

It's better than AKIRA

[6/10 · 25 April 1999]

This movie is about fights between American military special forces and japanese AKAAM, which is a foundation organized to protect mysterious relics left from presumably hyper-cultural and hyper-technics being on earth in the past. Here, Noah's Ark is described as a thing which can control weather and evolution on earth.

I read cartoon first and then saw the animation. Animation picked just one of the cartoon stories. However the movie was as good as cartoon. Cartoon AKIRA was absolutely better than the movie. Once you read the AKIRA Cartoon, we will notice how the movie wasn't made responsibly. Katsuhiro Otomo who directed the movie AKIRA was involved in making of Spriggun, but not as Director at this time. Cartoon AKIRA is superb, but when compared as movie, it is far below the movie Spriggun. Spriggun was made of rigid story-telling and had the final, AKIRA was finalized in the middle of the whole story of cartoon though.

You may think some scenes are similar to those of the Fifth element, and I also thought that way even though I considered the firth element as a plagiarism of three animations which are the Transformer (Movie), Heavy Metal and Ghost in the Shell in its essence of story and some scenes (copying scenes may not be a matter 'cause he already told us he did it from Ghost in the Shell, but more unbearable thing is to copy stories and it's my personal opinion.)

Spriggun is worth to see and to keep. The Japanese dubbing actors are good except the one who acted as the child Colonel. When he laughs, everyone will know it's unnatural. Except that laughing, that actor was also good and fit to that character.

Spriggun is well made to cover one part of the cartoon. But if you saw the cartoon, you better not imagine any other things from the movie. It's the same to see the cartoon and the movie. However, I enjoyed it.

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

My favorite animation so far

[29 January 1999]

After seeing it, I changed my mind about animation. Now I am crazy about animated movies such as Akira, Evangelion, Raputa, Naushika, Fantastic Planet, Memories, etc., which I do have those tapes all now. It's well known that Ruc Besson copies some of the images from this movie into his "The 5th Element".

Director Oshii Mamoru might be inspired by "Blade Runner" and "2001:A Space Odyssey". The concept of "Ghost in the Shell" is much similar to those two movies. However, it has its own story worth thinking over and over. The animated motions are superb, music is excellent and the scenario is so complicated (I like complicated ones). It's best animation for me so far.