Morpheus2000
28-02-2004, 14:39
I went to see Battle Royale 2 and Zatoichi in the Irish Film Festival last weekend and I was disappointed with both of them, more so with Battle Royale 2.
Zatoichi started off quite well with a lone warrior coming to the rescue of a town getting rid of the gangs. It worked quite well and only bogged down with storyline of the children looking for revenge. This part of the story didn’t work quite well for me, it was a touch boring and Zatoichi himself was missing for a good chunk of the film.
Some of the fight scenes were good, but the carnage was computer generated and it was done quite poorly as it was obvious. Most of the time they were shot close up and it was difficult to make out what was happening and there should have been more fights in it. There was some good humour to the film as well, with the farmers digging in tune with the soundtrack etc. Although sometimes the humour was a little cheap. I’d probably give Zatoichi 7/10 as it was well made with the exception of the rather choppy editing (sometimes it was hard to make out which scenes were flashback).
Battle Royale 2 one the other hand was an even bigger disappointment. I really enjoyed the first film with the sadistic killings that were actually very funny. The sequel started off brilliantly but the second of the film was utter crap. The land invasion was really superb, almost as good as Saving Private Ryan, but once the second half of the film kicked in it got rather stupid.
Numerous plot holes appear once the Tatsuya Fujiwara plot thread manifests itself and then the battle scenes are more or less the same as the land invasion. The idea of the first half of the film is actually quite good and totally different from the first film, which was a brave move. However the second half is so ridiculous it becomes really boring and ending it utterly stupid. There’s also a section where three characters have flashbacks at the same time, which did nothing for the film and these could have been deleted. Probably deserves 5/10 and no more, which is probably a little harsh considering director Kinji Fukasaku died from cancer just over a year ago. I believe his son took over directorial duties.
There are few other Japanese films I want to see, Appleseed, Casshern and Ghost in the Shell: Innocence they all look great from the trailers.
I saw both Battle Royale 2 and Zatoichi in UGC 17, which I think is bigger than screen number 1 in Liffey Valley. It was a massive screen, but it’s not the biggest screen in Ireland, I think Savoy 1 is. The UGC cinema is not great and the sound is too loud, but I did like screen 17, the rest are ¼ it’s size. Has anybody else seen these films yet? I’d really love to know what you thought of them.
Zatoichi started off quite well with a lone warrior coming to the rescue of a town getting rid of the gangs. It worked quite well and only bogged down with storyline of the children looking for revenge. This part of the story didn’t work quite well for me, it was a touch boring and Zatoichi himself was missing for a good chunk of the film.
Some of the fight scenes were good, but the carnage was computer generated and it was done quite poorly as it was obvious. Most of the time they were shot close up and it was difficult to make out what was happening and there should have been more fights in it. There was some good humour to the film as well, with the farmers digging in tune with the soundtrack etc. Although sometimes the humour was a little cheap. I’d probably give Zatoichi 7/10 as it was well made with the exception of the rather choppy editing (sometimes it was hard to make out which scenes were flashback).
Battle Royale 2 one the other hand was an even bigger disappointment. I really enjoyed the first film with the sadistic killings that were actually very funny. The sequel started off brilliantly but the second of the film was utter crap. The land invasion was really superb, almost as good as Saving Private Ryan, but once the second half of the film kicked in it got rather stupid.
Numerous plot holes appear once the Tatsuya Fujiwara plot thread manifests itself and then the battle scenes are more or less the same as the land invasion. The idea of the first half of the film is actually quite good and totally different from the first film, which was a brave move. However the second half is so ridiculous it becomes really boring and ending it utterly stupid. There’s also a section where three characters have flashbacks at the same time, which did nothing for the film and these could have been deleted. Probably deserves 5/10 and no more, which is probably a little harsh considering director Kinji Fukasaku died from cancer just over a year ago. I believe his son took over directorial duties.
There are few other Japanese films I want to see, Appleseed, Casshern and Ghost in the Shell: Innocence they all look great from the trailers.
I saw both Battle Royale 2 and Zatoichi in UGC 17, which I think is bigger than screen number 1 in Liffey Valley. It was a massive screen, but it’s not the biggest screen in Ireland, I think Savoy 1 is. The UGC cinema is not great and the sound is too loud, but I did like screen 17, the rest are ¼ it’s size. Has anybody else seen these films yet? I’d really love to know what you thought of them.