Ryuhei Kitamura blasted onto our screens with his frenetic evil dead style gangster fantasy swordplay zombie flick
‘Versus’ and then the world was screaming out for more. This movie was an update of his previous
'Down to Hell', and has since had an extra polish due to its success, a sequel too is in the pipeline.
‘Sky High’, his latest effort, is sadly a much weaker affair.
There’s a serial killer on the loose, leaving his victims displayed like broken trophies with holes in their chests where their hearts used to be.
Kanzaki (Shoshuke Tanihara) is a cop, and as he awaits his bride’s journey down the isle something strange happens. His bride, Mina (Yumiko Shaku, who is much better in ‘The Princess Blade’ than she is here), dressed in her white gown is heading off down the isle for the day of her dreams becomes the latest victim of this fiend on the loose, her dress dripping red and collapses into the hands of her lost love.
It’s here that the movie splits into two, on one hand we have Mina at the Gates of Rage, a dominion between heaven and hell, a purgatory of sorts, and on the other we have Kanzaki enraged and going on the vengeance trail. Mina is faced with a decision but luckily for us she is allowed some time to think and comes back in the guise of a helpful spirit to find out who the bad guys are and to help Kanzaki without condemning him to eternal damnation at the same time, yup that’s right, there are shadows of ‘Ghost’ in here but it thankfully this speaks about love and loss without the saccharine or a potter's wheel.
It seems that the serial killer, the billionaire playboy Kudo (Takao Osawa), has a book of the dead at hand and he wants to use the demons lurking behind the gate for the resurrection of his ill and incapacitated love, this reminded me a little of the 'Dr. Phibes' movies, and is just as cheesy as them but without the charm. So with the aid of his kung fu fighting sword-wielding sidekick Rei, his secretary, but also a previous Gate Keeper with a few supernatural twists up her sleeve, they go on the rampage as he needs to collect six hearts to work his spell.
Add in a female shaman and a photographer with that David Warner ‘Omen’ touch and what is left is a big face off that goes between the worlds and hopefully the fate of mankind will be in good hands, but you already know it will be as this is the prequel to the hit Japanaese TV show.
This movie was conceived to fill in the back-story to the show, and strangely enough the show is playing on a TV screen in the background in one scene. This was to show the geneses of the character of the Gate Keeper. But you are never really dealt an assured hand by Kitamura. The script wanders all over the place and the actors do not look at ease in any of the action choreography. Actually part of the blame here must go to the wimpy Shaku, who looks great, but also looks as if holding a sword is an ordeal never mind using it to save mankind. With hindsight, after watching this movie you do say that was okay, but you have the feeling there is a much better movie waiting to burst out. It does not have the in your face attitude of ‘Versus’ or the benefit of a great looking girl handling the swordplay and looking all the sexier for it, as he did with Aya Ueto in ‘Azumi’ for example, or he could have just given more screen time to the underused leatherclad actress who plays Rei here, to make it’s male viewers at least forget the plot holes and just drool away.
The extras are a little miss-titled too. You have a 'making of' featurette, which is nothing more than a collection of some behind-the-scenes stuff, never once offering any insight to the proceedings. Then you have the 'cast interviews', which is more like a making of with some reflections from the cast members thrown in for good measure. Thankfully they got the trailer part correct. For something that is a spin off from a successful TV show and a popular comic book, there is nothing here of merit about its foundations and origins.
Overall it is an entertaining flick but at the same time you feel somewhat cheated.
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