Saturday, October 1, 2005

   Goldwing: A movie I swear I didn't imagine . . .
I have a feeling this one could be a patented SomeGuy Long-assed post(TM) . . . anyway, this one takes me back a long time . . .

So I'm from one of those families that always just sorta had these tapes of cartoons on the video shelf. More often than not they were probably taped from "real" tapes using the 2-VCR maneuver and all . . . but in any case, you'd end up with these super-tapes full of 3 other tapes' worth of shows. We have a few of them still, way back in the shelfs somewhere . . . I know there's at least one or two of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", a couple of "Transformers/GI JOE" . . . maybe some of those Transformers tapes also have some "Go Bots" on them (for those of you too young to know, Go Bots lick the metal nuts of the Transformers big time). But there was one odd little movie-thing that just sorta happened to be on one of these compilation tapes . . .

So why is this movie "Goldwing" so important? Well, for one thing I do believe it's actually the very first anime I have ever seen in my entire life many, many years ago. Of course I didn't know it was anime back then. I didn't even really register that they were drawn in a different style. What I did notice, though, was that the voices didn't always fit with the mouths (like early in the film when a truck-driver gets run off the road, sticks his head out the window and shouts "Hey watch it!" through his clenched teeth while shaking his fist). A lot of animation bits were reused a bunch of times (like a certain part of throwing a missile into other missiles and them all blowing up), and that the guy had a recurring slow-motion transformation sequence . . . . . it was also violent as hell and people were dying all over the place . . . well, more or less . . .

Alright, so here's the basic plot: an alien ship is being chased by another alien ship. The chased one gets shot down; "Jack", the main character, drives to the crash and checks it out. I forget how he gets into the ship . . . oh, maybe the alien psychically got him to come in or something . . . he psychically got him to stay, in any case ("Don't go..." "Haaaaah!!!!!")

The alien tells him about "Karzone", the evil bad guy leader guy. I can't remember exactly, but they may have been the same alien race . . . in any case, the dying alien gives Jack some super-powers and a robotic panther-thing named Pantera. Thus, Jack becomes "Goldwing", a hero-dude dressed in red with gold trim, and a helmet with a green visor - he gets a staff/axe thingy as a weapon too. His transformation sequence was kinda neat, though. He'd run slow-motion through this trippy colour-changing background plate, then he'd do a forward flip through the air and his clothes would change in mid-flip - all the while, the theme music would dramatically play. Hehe.

Anyway, Jack also happens to be the adopted son of this scientist guy - scientist guy also has two kids: a young girl and a teenaged boy who likes to eat. Scientist-guy is part of a team building the "Bronze Man" - basically, a large mecha that's designed to build cities under water (why, I forget). Needless to say, a giant robot is useful for other purposes, so Karzone sets out to capture it and stuff through the help of some princess with a whip/lazer-whip and an android named "Marzak" (you don't know he's an android 'til later, though, even though his fingers shot bullets).

So little thingies happen here and there, mixing in side bits about having a secret identity (y'know, when the family thinks he's a coward), silly humour for the sake of humour (the line "I thought it was a robot fly!" comes to mind), and other bits. The action was very . . . repetitive, but pretty crazy.

In the end, the princess turns out to be helping Karzone against her will (or something, probably her dad was overthrown or something). In any case, Goldwing (with the help of the Bronze Man piloted by the scientist-guys' kids or something) assault Karzone's ship, the big fight happens . . . Marzak changes sides, dies helping them win, and Karzone eventually gets sucked out of a hull breach and dies in space (presumably). Happy ending. Oh yeah, and a creepy little evil scientist guy under Karzone backs up into a radiator or something and evaporates/disintegrates. Fun times . . .

It was very retro, in that '80s style of anime like the old "Mobile Suit Gundam" or "Robotech/Macross". I also remember the opening credits song very distinctly. The lyrics were belted out powerfully by some female vocalists, and the words were like, "Goooooldwing Goooooldwing, Suuuuuuuit of pooooooowaaaah!" I remember bits of that tune, but not all of it. Because of that opening, though, it makes me think that maybe it was an OVA or something . . . . . but, I digress.

So what bugs me the most about thinking about this show? I can't find a single damn thing about it anywhere! IMDB's got nothing, ANN's got nothing . . . indeed, the only internet source about "Goldwing" comes from an abandoned Fortunecity website with very barebones info (the site is here, if anyone's wondering).

I know it's probably useless to say "has anyone seen this or know anything about this?" because well . . . like I said, for a while I actually wondered if this was even a real movie or not! I mean, the only people who even mentioned it would be my brothers . . . . . heh, maybe I should look for that tape . . .

I should ask Panda, she knows about stuff like this now and then . . . . . ah, we'll see. So yeah, that's "Goldwing".


In other news, I've finished mailing off the last of the Pocky and Naruto paraphrenalia. I also scored some Swedish buns the other day. Let it be known that Mimmi has some damn tasty buns . . . mmmm . . . . . alright, work tomorrow. See ya!


Random SomeGuy Trivia: The style of kung-fu I practice is "Northern Shaolin Lawhon Style". Basically, it's lots of jumps, lots of big kicking, sweeping motions . . . . . good times. I've also not gone to practice, in about two months . . . dang . . .


[EDIT: Okay, since I last checked, IMDB does indeed have a page about Goldwing. It is, unfortunately, extremely bare-bones. Well, I guess so long that I'm still sure I didn't imagine the movie . . .]
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