Overview: Like Immortel and Sky Captain, Casshern was one of the first movies filmed entirely on Blue or Green Screen. Casshern is by far the most ambitious of the three movies in terms of story complexity, symbols and messages conveyed, and in the scope of experimentation with visual effects. Unlike Sky Captain, this is NOT a feel-good Raiders-like fun romp. And unlike Immortel, which is also complex in scope, Casshern largely meets its intent from a story perspective. While Casshern is philosophically dense (I haven’t seen the anime yet, is it philosophically dense as well?), it does have some terrific action sequences. One of the best samurai sword duels I’ve seen happens here, as does some terrific robot vs. human fights. With its hard rock accompaniment, the action is almost matrix-like in quality.

Casshern takes place in a very mechanized dystopian alternate future, in which the forces of Europa and the Greater Eastern Federation have been fighting a 50 year war for dominance. The Greater Eastern Federation has finally established control over the Eurasian continent, and now has to deal with the horrid side-effects the endless years of a chemical, biological, and nuclear war. The earth’s environment is in shambles, most of civilization has been wiped out and people usually wear protective masks when venturing outside.

Its in this environment that Dr. Azuma, a genetic scientist, comes up with a solution to the maladies. He says he has discovered special “neo-cells” that can regenerate human tissue, and in effect, can create “replaceable parts” for the human body. An aging General with serious health problems jumps on this solution and sets Dr. Azuma up with a lab funded by the military. Casshern centers around the life of Dr. Azuma’s son Tetsuya, who in rebelling, decides to join the army. Unfortunately, he finds out that war is truly hell, and eventually ends up dying. His ghost comes back to say goodbye to his mother and fiancee, but things don’t go as planned. Unfortunately, Dr. Azuma’s research is not going very well. To extract more “Neo-cells,” the military ends up engaging in ethnic cleansing of the oldest part of Eurasia - sector 7. They bring back the body parts for the good doctor to use in extracting the Neo-cells.

We find, however, that Sector 7 is inhabited by an ethnic group who were devout followers of a Gaurdian Spirit called Casshern. Casshern decides to make his presence felt and sends his lightning bolt down from the heavens, right into Dr. Azuma’s lab, and gives the Neo-cell “pool” the ability to bring the dead body parts back to life. After massive amounts of zombie-like people (later referred to as neo-sapiens) emerge from the pool (sparking the military to go all out in killing them), Dr. Azuma gets the idea that if he places his son Tetsuya in the pool, he will come back to life as well. This works, and Tetsuya gets reborn, but as a faster, stronger version of himself, just like the newly formed “neo-sapiens.”

After the military hunts down and kills virtually all of the neo-sapiens, the few remaining Neo-sapiens escape to Sector 7, and after a cry for help, their prayers are answered when the Gaurdian Casshern sends them down an ancient stronghold, completely with robot warrior making capabilities. The rest of the movie involves the ongoing conflict between the Neo-sapiens and the Greater Eastern Federation, and the role that Tetsuya (who later takes the name Casshern when defending the local people) and his family plays in it. There is also a really nice love story that takes place between Tutsuya and Luna. They apparently have been fated for one another since birth, and will continue to be together throughout time.

The Visuals: Casshern has some of the most astounding visuals on film. More impressive is the use of various color palettes and textures to represent various themes in the movie. Death is represented by streaking white aura around a person; war is represented in a black and white pixilated look; Impending doom is represented in yellow; green represents life; the Neo-sapiens have the dark blue and bright red colors, etc. Truly, the diversity in visual effects is the strong highpoint of the movie. Also, I found the choice of music accompaniment consistently terrific. The choices really add to the mood. Combined with the astounding visuals, we really get a tour-de-force type “blow you away” affect. . Casshern is also heavily laden with symbols and philosophical meaning. In addition to having a strong antiwar and anti-technology message, Casshern gives us interesting religious musings, and some thoughts on implications for cheating death, and a pretty powerful message for the need for co-existence with others. Most interestingly, Casshern is able to show pain and suffering on the individual “little person” level, and show how this affects the large scale picture.

Overview: While difficult to understand (let me know if you want me to post a “page 2 spoiler” on this to explain it - it really is a very cool story), Casshern is simply an awesome picture that will develop a huge following over the years. Take the time to understand this, and you should love it. It is NOT a happy picture though, and is very emotional in tone.

Overview: Cybercity, directed by the same guy who did the Marathon sequence in the Animatrix, is a pretty fun, but dated cyberpunk anime from 1990 that centers on 3 ultra-tough criminals who agree help the police kill the bad guys. They get these explosive collars installed (see above) and are given time limits for each mission - if they exceed the time limit - BOOM! There goes their head!

There are three stories on the DVD that I have - each centering on one of the three heroes. The stories aren’t that bad, and some of the animation is fairly decent considering the time. LOTS of shots have the US 80s cartoon look, but every now and then, you find some pretty cool cyberpunk visuals thrown in the mix. Here’s a sampling of some of the better visuals:

The Bottom Line: Again, nothing spectacularly breathtaking from either a visual, story, or philosophical standpoint, but this is clearly a decent low-budget attempt. Give it a try if you’ve got nothing better to watch. By the way, if someone knows where I can get the rest of the shows (assuming there were any), please let me know, as I’ve only seen the first three.

Overview: Pierce Brosnan as 007 stars in this scifi espionage flick about a guy with a lawnmower who tries to take over the world…Well, that’s not exactly it, but close

This might be another one of those I’m out to lunch on, but I’m guessing most have seen this flick. Lawnmower Man was originally derived from a Stephen King novel (although considering that King sued to have his name removed, we might infer he wasn’t thrilled with this movie), and is about a genius government funded scientist (Brosnan) who’s doing research on increasing human intelligence through using drug-assisted virtual reality experiments. His research, originally done on chimps, was cut off when a chimp goes wild, so instead of giving up, he does the research in his basement, using the local lawnmower dullard as his test subject.

Over time, the Lawnmower guy becomes awesomely intelligent, so much so that he grows more powerful than anyone could have possibly imagined. So much so, in fact, that he becomes a potential threat to mankind!

The Bottom Line: Lawnmower man is an early entree into 3D graphics. The graphics were rather decent at the time but certainly looks dated now. It’s still a nice scifi thriller that fully qualifies as a cyberpunk movie in every way possible. I enjoy this, and generally like Brosnan movies, but maybe its just a guilty pleasure of mine. Whereas I find it watchable in a cheesy sort of way, I can certainly imagine others scoffing at some of the insane plot points (like going from a multi-million dollar a year funded defense project, to getting better results in your basement). But even if you find this one watchable, it’s a pretty clear bet that you won’t stand a chance at liking the sequel.