Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Goke and Shigurui
GOKE
So I ended up watching the entire movie last night, and it exceeded my expectations for weirdness. Here is the summation I sent to a friend today:

I watched the weirdest movie last night... o_O

"Goke: Body Snatcher from Hell"

Ok... so an airliner is on it's way to Japan, flying through some rather nasty red clouds with birds committing suicide by slamming into the windows (actually the same bird repeated several times).

Crew gets a call from the ground that there was a threat called in to the police about a bomb being on the plane. The don't find a bomb, but instead a rifle owned by some dude who attempts to hijack the plane.

In the middle of the hijack, radio reports that a UFO has been sighted over Japan. Said UFO strafes the plane, instruments and engine blow out, and the plane crashes in the desert (apparently Death Valley has moved to Japan).

Several people survive, including the hijacker, who takes the flight attendant hostage and runs. Unfortunately, hijacker comes across the UFO, and the thing hypnotizes him and pulls him in. Inside, some blue alien blob cuts open the guy's forhead and oozes inside (and the wound is FREAKING HUGE AND OBVIOUS!)

Long story short, alien-possessed hijacker-man starts coming after the survivors, drinking their blood vampire style. Passengers continuously turn on each other cuz they are a whining, sniveling bunch of babies (what do you expect of a corporate high-climber and a greedy politician).

Aliens make contact and reveal their grand plans to invade and wipe out humanity (um... WHY?).

Hijacker dude is eventually killed with fire (ooooh, aaaah...), but the alien survives and just crawls inside someone else (D'OH!).

In the end, the only ones left are the co-pilot and flight attendant (who does nothing but scream on cue). They wander in the desert for a few minutes until they find a highway (oh, by the way, there was another radio report that said the plane couldnt be found and the rescuers were giving up hope... so WHY ARE THEY 2 MILES FROM A HIGHWAY???).

Anyway, everyone is dead in their cars, and more people are dead in the city. The aliens have already killed Japan.

Last shot is a fleet (well, maybe 15) of UFOs coming for Earth.
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What the ^&(*$#@ did I just watch?!?!

I'm not sure if it's all films or just this Z-grade scifi stuff, but Japanese people really over-act (and make the silliest facial expressions ever).

And Quentin Tarrantino loves this movie. Go figure...


SHIGURUI
And now for something completely different...

This is a historical samurai action drama that recently began airing (only 6 episodes subbed so far), produced by MADHOUSE.

I'm a bit confused at the beginning right now, but hopefully as I watch it this will become less of a problem.

As expected of any MADHOUSE series, the animation is truly superb, and rather artsy in a way. Plus it's samurai slicing the hell out of each other, who doesn't love that?

This is the kind of show I have been desperately waiting for. Basilisk disappointed me from the get-go: I didn't like how it threw a bunch of unrealistic mutants into a historical setting.
Shigurui rectifies this, living up to what I like to call the "Kenshin Factor" - that is, I compare all animated samurai shows to the Kenshin OVAs. If it doesn't match or top that, it isn't worth the time.

Word of warning: If you plan to go check out Shigurui for yourself, be advised that it is intense in it's violence, and there are some sexual scenes (not sure how many yet, but there was one in the first episode). Keep this away from impressionable young eyes and minds.


And now it's about time for me to drift off to bed. I have to go to the lab tomorrow for my bi-weekly bloodwork, and thanks to this Tropical Storm Noel, I can envision the weather not being very pleasant. This doesn't thrill me, because I still have to deal with a leaky car windshield o_O
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