context: movies > some films

Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis

1988. Original title: don't know. Director: Aiko Jissoji. Starring: Shintaro Katsu.

I'll tell you how obscure this is: I can't even find it on IMDB - they direct me to an animated film (this is live action) by the same director called Doomed Megalopolis. It's a dazzling horror fantasy set early in the 20th Century, putting the old city's future as a major world city at stake - it gives an evil-magic explanation for the great earthquake, for instance. It's kind of incoherent - it maybe needs either an extra half-hour or, better, five fewer characters and a couple fewer plotlines. The confusion is illustrated late on: we have a woman in a white kimono carrying a spear and riding a white horse, possibly to where the subway-digging golden robot is fighting the demons, or maybe to where the ghost-earthquakes are happening, or where this other woman is levitating because possessed, or where the tall evil magician in military uniform (pictured) is trying to invoke the ancient spirit, or perhaps where her husband is doing whatever mysterious thing he is plotting, or is it to do with the firmament dragon causing the storms above...?

I never understood how the whole mess was resolved, but I didn't care. The film looks spectacular and original all the way through and is bursting with ideas and visual style. Moments reminded me of Phantasm or Aliens (Giger did some design work on this as well) or Ray Harryhausen or some wild Hong Kong fantasies (Tsui Hark style) or Buffy, but overall I decided that director Akio Jissoji is one of the greatest stylists I've seen. It's also full of very strong acting, sometimes obvious star turns from big names, but I don't know if that's universally the case.

backwards: Seven Samurai