[Mesnick]

Looked at Yongary. Basically, this is a typical post-Godzilla kaiju movie. So typical that the creators themselves even note it through the mouth of a boy asking: “Do earthquakes happen not only in Japan?” The Korean origin of the film is indicated only by the names and hanboks. And the miniatures are good, and the monster is not bad, but the secondary nature and some lack of ideas I mentioned spoil the whole impression. So in terms of kaiju, North Korea is far superior to its neighbors. Although, for a more fair comparison, I still need to watch War of God's Monsters from 1985.

[Mesnick]

I watched "Monster SeaFood Wars" 2020. The essence of this film is that in the process of fighting giant octopus, squid and crab, it becomes clear that their meat is incredibly tasty, which radically changes the attitude towards them. A kind of reminder that even though kaiju embody disasters, within the framework of their universe they are all huge animals, with all that it entails.
The monsters and special effects are emphatically unnatural, and everything that happens has a strong vibe of an amateur film, but given the parodic nature of the project, this is justified. But what is not justified is that with a modest duration of an hour and twenty minutes, the film is perceived as drawn out. So I can only recommend it to those who have already watched at least a couple of dozen kaiju films and several Ultraman shows.

[GoldenXtreme]

You ever watch something and realize that you really needed more context? That's me with Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis. It's an adaptation of the famous "dark fantasy historical novel" series Teito Monogatari, but I kind of expected the film to try and do more for people who weren't familiar with the source material. Add that to my limited knowledge about Japanese historical figures, the extremely dense plot, and a runtime of over two hours. Needless to say, I struggled to follow it.

A few names that worked on this movie caught my eye. H.R. Giger contributed some designs to this movie, but it wasn't a film that was very heavy on creatures in the first place so I was rather disappointed. Akio Jissoji, who I know for the extremely surreal episodes he directed for the Ultraman series, was also directing for this film. While it does have a bit of his visual flair to it, I was also disappointed overall because the movie was so dang normal looking compared to his other stuff I have seen.

Might be best to leave this movie as a historical footnote... That being said I'll try the sequel later and see how I like it.

[GoldenXtreme]

Follwing up with the sequel to my prior post, it is Tokyo: The Last War!

I hear that this is a far less faithful adaptation of the source material than the prior film, but perhaps because of that I found it a much more comprehensible film. I'd say it's a lot more accessible too: it's shorter, has more action and effects works, and didn't even have any weird incest or rape in it. Wow! It's still not a movie that tries to explain its characters and their pasts or motivations in too much depth though and the whole thing is so dimmly lit I could barely make it out at times.

Anyways, the climax of the movie where it is revealed that a Japanese mystic forced Hitler to commit suicide via dark magic was certainly an unintentionally funny move for the ages.

[Androzani84]

My watch for tonight has been Chou Ninja Tai Inazuma. Whatever I expected he plot to be, I wasn’t expecting “tv producers from the future travel through time to the Sengoku era to make a superhero show using locals”.

[Mesnick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

My watch for tonight has been Chou Ninja Tai Inazuma. Whatever I expected he plot to be, I wasn?t expecting ?tv producers from the future travel through time to the Sengoku era to make a superhero show using locals?.

I remember this. Fun show.

[GoldenXtreme]

Finally got around to watching Godzilla Minus One! It's a solid kaiju movie, although not particularly mind-blowing and certainly not what I expected from the trailers and reception. I think my favorite bit of the movie is how they used the post-war setting to have the human characters fight Godzilla with extremely limited resources, which stood out from the typical super science you see in these sorts of films. The story was quite simple, following traumatized a WWII veteran who avoided death as a Kamikaze pilot. It's nicely told, but lacks any major surprises. It also felt like the story was just a prologue to the real plot to me. The Minus One version of Godzilla has strong Hollywood influence compared to the more classically tokusatsu Shin incarnation. To me, he lacked much impact, feeling relatively weak as a monster since the humans had to fight him with so little and only having a few big destruction scenes. Comparing him to the Shin version again, I actually found MiGodzi less scary because he almost felt anthropomorphized with the way he stared right at people. In the end, I kind of feel like the period setting was a mistake. Godzilla is at its best as a tool for social commentary of some sort, and the WWII setting restricted it to making some lukewarm commentary on the Japanese government's disregard for the lives of their own soldiers during the time. America gets very little flack even when it would be relevant to bring up. Even disregarding that this version of Godzilla was seemingly mutated by nuclear tests at the Bikini Atoll, they also completely glaze over America was strong-arming Japan into disarming at the time. What can I say, both the monster and the commentary felt rather defanged in this one. Hoping the next film improves on some of these points, but I'm just happy we might be able to actually get regular Japanese Godzilla films again!

[Sunred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

My watch for tonight has been Chou Ninja Tai Inazuma. Whatever I expected he plot to be, I wasn?t expecting ?tv producers from the future travel through time to the Sengoku era to make a superhero show using locals?.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mesnick

I remember this. Fun show.

Starring the Magiranger cast, Deka Pink and Deka Red from Dekaranger, and Mugensai Hinata from Hurricanger. There is also a sequel called Inazuma Spark with Mami Yamazaki aka Shizuka from Boukenger. Mitsuomi Takahashi who was Akashi/Bouken Red is also a co-star iirc.

[Mesnick]

I watched "Smoking Causes a Cough." Well, if you are expecting tokusatsu or even a parody of tokusatsu, then this movie is not for you. Elements of the genre are few and superficial. The concept of “stories around the fire” is also not completed and they serve, for the most part, to stretch out the timing. As, indeed, is the main plot. And although I like this kind of leisurely humor, here it was too ill-conceived. I suspect they filmed it without a script. In general, the movie is reminiscent of “What are we doing in the shadows?”, if at some point everyone involved stopped caring about their creation.