Trekstravaganza 2009: Season 1

In the wake of the latest Star Trek film, I wanted to revisit the original series, the 79 episode beast that started it all (80 if you include the pilot) and give a taste of what made the series so interesting to so many people. I’m going to use these three marks to denote what a particular episode has.

Of course I won’t be covering all of the episodes, just those where I have something to say.

Denotes a well-known Trek episode, the kind Tom Hanks blurts out during interviews at late night talk shows, or parodied in shows like Family Guy.

Denotes a favorite episode of mine. Doesn’t have to be the best in everyone’s eyes.

Denotes a weirdass episode. Full of the psychedelic shit of the 1960’s.

Season 1

Season 1 of Star Trek was Trek trying to find its groove. Characters shifted around, people’s jobs were shifting around like Sulu, and there were a number of inconsistencies from episode to episode. Despite that, a lot of classic episodes came out of the series, including the episode considered as the series’ best.

Episode #3: Where no Man has Gone Before

Kirk and company pass through the Great Barrier, which totally mindfucks one (and later two) of his crewmembers, turning them into really, really powerful beings. Unfortunately, their EQ isn’t up to par for being able to make mindbullets, so Kirk faces them down. What a badass.

Essentially the second episode created for the series, this episode has a smiling Spock (maybe he was just smug) old uniforms and mention of ESP among Starfleet personnel. They didn’t revisit that in later series IIRC, unless there was some kind of Section 31 shit that I didn’t know about.

Episode #4: The Naked Time

Kirk and company get a virus that makes them act like a bunch of drunk or high teenagers. Shit ensues. Oh, and Sulu is fencing. I originally saw that as kind of lame. Being asian, I wanted him to weirld at least an asian sword, going batshit around the Enterprise with a katana. They did manage to do that in the new movie, however, so it’s all good.

Episode #5: The Enemy Within

Kirk gets split into goody goody Kirk which is like Jean Luc Picard with slightly less spine, and 100% Bad Kirk. (note bad, not badass.) He totally makes out with the girl and shit. The moral lesson of this? We are the sum total of our good and bad selves and one cannot exist without the other. Not bad.

Oh, and what was up with that “alien?” It was a dog dressed in pink fur with a plastic horn. I mean what the fuck.

Episode #7: What are Little Girls Made of?

Kirk and company go to this planet where Nurse Chapel’s fiancee is stationed. They go in and realize that they are all ROBOTS. Most notable is Kirk’s babe of the week, Sherry Jackson, who shows up as pleasure robot Andrea. Lol Roger Korby is cheating on Nurse Chapel hahaha.

Anyway, Korby is actually batshit insane and kills himself, Kirk makes out with the babe of the week and all is right with the world.

Episode #8: Miri

Kirk comes across a near duplicate of earth where kids are the only surviving individuals. Star Trek will revisit this parallel earth scenario again and again throughout the series. IMO it’s infinitesimally rare to have a parallel earth but the episodes with parallel earths usually had a point to it, especially as a mirror to our own contemporary culture. Here it was about growing up and the divide between generations. In the 1960s the people who grew up with WW2 and this growing peaceful generation that would later have this peace revolution hippie shit was experiencing such a divide.

Oh, and Kirk’s babe of the week is either Janice “I always wanted you to look at my legs but not now, deadly pathogenic organism causing skin lesions kthxbye” Rand or Miri, who is like 13 years old. Granted, it’s not technically so but. DUDE. Kirk hitting on a 13 year old. Chris Hansen would be all over his ass now.

Episode #9: Dagger of the Mind

Kirk has a stowaway from a prison, returns said stowaway, shit hits fan. Anyway the only person I wanted to talk about in this episode was Kirk’s babe of the week, which IMO was one of the best babes of the week in the first season. She was Marianna Hill, who played Dr. Helen Noel. She was cool in that she was not only Kirk’s kissing target, she also hauled ass and kicked it just as well as the captain. Damn it, Kirk gets the best girls.

Episode #10: The Corbomite Maneuver.

Basically this is just a long drawn out game of bluff, which is what the “Corbomite Maneuver” was. Kirk was like totally shouting loud within the Fesarius’ ears, “Okay, destroy us, but we got this really powerful weapon that does over 9000 damage everytime we get hit. So yeah, go ahead. Not like we care.” What a badass. Of course now that would only be loled at, but this is the 23^rd century we’re talking about.

Episode #13: The Conscience of the King

It’s Shakespeare in space! Surprisingly without Klingons! Also throw in some sort of good old murder mystery. Not much to say here, because it would spoil it. The lines at the end are pretty apropos considering the circumstances of the ending and the parallels to Shakespeare.

Episode #14: Balance of Terror

One of the best Trek Episodes, Kirk gets into a submarine type tussle with the Romulans, headed by Mark Lenard, who we all know as Spock’s father Sarek. Although the recent style of fast paced Star Wars fighting is being considered more positively, the slow Wrath of Khan type battle was always a favorite of mine. These ships I consider as capital ships, the Galaxy class of their day. What’s nice about the episode is that it portrays both parties not as stereotypes, but as opposite sides, both with good and bad, fighting a war.

Episode #15: Shore Leave

After one of the best, follows one of the trippiest Trek Episodes. Hopping people in bunny suits, assholes named Finnegan (lol at “Jimmy Boy “ being a total nerd before becoming the galaxy’s greatest badass) and Samurai. Fuckitty fuck shit, this was certainly high on the weirdo scale.

Episode #18: Arena

KIRK VS. THE FUCKING GORN, BABY. It eclipses the rest of the episode, literally. Who cares about the fucking “Metrons” and the other shit that was destroyed when the Gorn attacked? This was all about Kirk vs. the Gorn. He beat the Gorn with a makeshift rifle out of bamboo and some chemicals. Kirk was fucking channeling McGyver even before there was a McGyver. That’s how badass he was.

I guess there was something in the episode about how war was bad, and how conflicts can be borne out of misunderstanding, and how people should look at both sides of a confliWHAT THE FUCK, LOOK AT THAT, KIRK VS. THE FUCKING GORN

Episode #19: Tomorrow is Yesterday

Kirk and company accidentally go back in time and screw up the timeline. Eventually they make everything right again. Notable are the action scenes in this film, as we see the origins of the patented Kirk jump kick. Also we see the warping around the sun time travel thingy that we will see reused in a Season 2 episode and in Star Trek IV The Voyage Home.

Episode #20: Court Martial

I always find Star Trek court based episodes very interesting. This one implicates Captain Kirk in an administrative complaint that claims the life of his crew. He meets a lawyer who stays true to the method of reading law books instead of keeping those books all inside one computer. The lawyer is pretty badass too. While Kirk is getting pwned by the prosecution (who turns out to be the requisite Kirk babe of the week - damn, this guy is more prolific than Wilt Chamberlain) Spock, his bestest friend in the world is… playing… 3D chess. Don’t worry, there’s a reason.

The mystery is pretty nice and the payoff was pretty unexpected. All in all good shit.

Episode #21: Return of the Archons

At first I thought that this was one of the crappy episodes, but it turned out to be one of my favorites. So I have to give a rundown of everything I find awesome about this. Basically, Kirk and co. come across a planet whose history and/or architecture parallels (again with the parallel earths WTF) depression-era America or something like that. The people are unreasonably catatonic, but once the bell rings, people go totally apeshit into an uncontrolled orgy of violence, sex, fistfucking and probably gerbils. They learn that Landru, some computer thing, is controlling the civilization as logically and soullessly as possible, for peace. Kirk no likey, so Kirk decides to totally fuck Landru up and bust a cap in its ass.

Now, generally, under the Prime Directive, since this is a primitive, non-warp capable civilization, the Federation shouldn’t be fucking with this society. In later series, all the captains would probably go, “okay, let’s not interfere, let’s just go to Something IV, warp seven engage.” Or at least they should tiptoe around the planet, interfering with the civilization as little as possible, if there was prior interference. The TNG Episode ‘Who Watches the Watchers’ is an example. Picard and co. may not always like the Prime Directive, but it was a Directive they would not fuck with. That’s why it was Starfleet general order number one.

But Kirk? Fuck no. He’s too badass for the fucking Prime Directive. I paraphrase this exchange between Kirk and Spock.

Spock: Captain, I must remind you of the non interference directive…

Kirk: Fuck Prime Directive! Onward hooooooooooo!

This also starts one of the Kirk vs. Computer scenes seen everywhere in the series, where Kirk totally fucks up a computer and causes it to go into error just by arguing with it in a brilliant display of logic. The producers may have thought it meant that man has the passion and the drive over any computer, no matter the superior mental processing power. I just think it’s badass.

Kirk – 1 Computer – 0 bitches.

Episode #22: Space Seed

No, the title does not imply bukkake in space.

Here we see Khan (the late, great, buff Ricardo Montalban) for the first time. He begins to out-badass Kirk himself, by stealing what was supposed to be Kirk’s babe of the week and claiming it as his own, and taking the entire Enterprise and claiming it as his own. But Kirk manages to outwit him enough and end up offering him his own kingdom. Of course, we all know what happened after that.

I wonder if Kirk knew what would happen. Like if Spock told him Ceti Alpha VI would explode but he care to tell Khan because he stole his babe of the week and tried to kill him/take over his ship.

Episode #23: A Taste of Armageddon

Alien guy: We have this great simulated war! Real casualties though.

Kirk: *Destroys computers*

Alien guy: WTF did you do? Now there will be war for real!

Kirk: lol

That’s pretty much it.

Episode #24: This Side of Paradise

Kirk and co. comes to this planet that turns everyone into pussies except Kirk, who is too badass to be turned into a pussy. Disturbed that everyone in the Enterprise has deserted him, even the redshirts, he calls up Spock to the Enterprise and totally flames him.

Spock lashes out at the trolling Kirk and realizes that strong emotions break the pussyfying agent. So they all return to normal. Happy ending for all.

Episode #25: Devil in the Dark

One of my favorite episodes, without spoiling the plot, I think this episode stresses the importance of understanding between two individuals or groups of individuals. To understand something or someone, one must look at their motivations. You can argue that it doesn’t excuse the action itself, but that’s a debate we can talk about another day.

Also, brownie points to McCoy for curing anything, probably even a rainy day.

Episode #26: Errand of Mercy

Klingons: WAR!

Federation: WAR!

Organians: we’re a bunch of cockblockers. Therefore, NO WAR!

HAPPY END

It was nice to see old school Klingons in TOS. Interesting to note that in the series that chronologically follows this, I have not seen any planet under Klingon rule. There have been Klingon colonies or settlements populated by Klingons, but planets populated by another alien species, ruled by Klingons? None. Feel free to correct me though.

Episode #28: The City on the Edge of Forever

Best episode of the series, according to many critics and fans of the series. It defines high quality Space Opera in a time when Sci fi was generally treated with stereotypes of little green men and B-movies. You really have to watch the episode by itself. Kirk and co. happen upon the Guardian of Forever, and McCoy accidentally goes back in time and changes history. So Kirk and Spock go after him but find that it isn’t as easy as they think.

Episode #29: Operation: Annihilate!

It’s Kirk vs. Space Pancakes! When I was a kid I was awed at the sight of futuristic looking buildings. There weren’t a lot of people though (even though the episode points out millions of colonists inhabiting the planet… maybe they just stayed in the shadows.) Great drama ensues when Sam Kirk and his wife fall victim to the attack. I always wondered what happened to Kirk’s nephew afterwards. Oh well. One question though, where was Sam Kirk when Kodos the Executioner did his shit in Tarsus IV? I’ll have to look that up.

So it turns out UV light kills the Space pancakes, and so Kirk and co. go on an ecstasy fueled rave into the night. Just kidding.

That pretty much wraps up my thoughts on the season. All in all a good season. Don’t worry, the shit only gets better from here – the second season improves by beginning to focus on the ensemble cast as well.

In a nutshell: Blood the Last Vampire

Saw this movie in the theater today. As I cannot form coherent thoughts right now... this will have to do.

• Overall, disappointed... ridiculous plot, especially after running out of material after the first half of the film. The second half was particulary bad, and the ending was really weird as it barely made any sense and explained nothing.
  
• BTW, this was based on the short 30 minute anime feature, not Blood+ or the manga.
  
• Jun Ji-hyun's english was excellent. So was everything else about her. Hehe. Okay her Japanese may not have been the best, but that's okay since she's Korean. It also helped me understand the Japanese in some of the dialogue, because -
  
• THERE WERE NO SUBTITLES DURING THE JAPANESE SPEAKING PARTS! Since I knew at least a little Japanese, I more or less understood the dialogue, but imagine being a non Japanese speaker and going through this. Maybe it was a problem with the film print that was distributed. And there were like three separate scenes like this. Speaking of the film print...
• The censors or whoever cut out a lot of scenes for the movie. The cuts actually ruined the first major fight scene, making it barely understandable. And in this film, knowing that the plot may be crap, all I have to look forward to are the action scenes. The action scenes are the backbone. And they broke this backbone like a wrestler's knee from the top turnbuckle! I'm not sure if this happened in your country, but it happened to mine (Philippines.)
  
• Whatever fight scenes are left are either boring or cut to death. The only one I really liked was the one with the old guy, and even that fight scene had a few trims here and there. I would rather watch an uncut R version of this movie that have it PG13 or something like that to have to film mangled this horribly. I have to see the uncut version of this film. Thanks, censors. You've managed to convince me to support the pirates. LOL.
• I like Koyuki as an actress. Her english is admittedly not the best. Maybe it would have been better in Japanese, but then again, there may have been no subs for that given the poor way the print was handled. Her character was severely underdeveloped and I wanted to see more of her kicking ass and a more epic battle in the end.
• Not enough "council." We don't even see them for the entire film other than that one old guy reading manga.
• Editing too fast and messy for me, ruining the fight scenes. There's "good" fast editing, and there's "jumbled mess" editing. It might be partly due to the cuts though, so I won't totally pass judgement on it.
  
• The rest of the actors are forgettable.

All in all, it would have been a nice action movie had there been no cuts and with cleaner editing and choreography. Too bad though. Still Jun Ji-hyun rocks and I look forward to seeing her in more, hopefully better international movies.

To boldly go... again

I am a Star Trek Fan.

To what level? I've watched all of the original series, most of the later series (TNG, DS9, Voyager) but not much of Enterprise. There was a time when I can tell you the name of any TNG episode just by seeing the first 5 minutes. I've watched all of the movies, and for the first ten movies I can tell you I've watched them at least 10 times each to the point where I could recite the lines from memory. If I had the chance I would go to a convention, in uniform even. And although I can't carry on a decent Klingon conversation, I can still say at least one word in Klingon.

After the tenth film the franchise died down for me. It was getting old, and the creative talent that had driven the series from that time grew stale. This is why I was skeptical upon hearing that a new Trek movie was being made, with new characters and a new continuity. A reboot. An alternate take on the franchise. They had this idea way back in the early nineties when the studio producers were thinking of a Starfleet Academy type movie showing young Kirk and Spock with a new fresh cast. It didn't take off then, but now the idea was revisited.

For the movie to work for me, it had to be 1) good as a Trek movie, 2) good as a movie in itself and 3) pay homage to the franchise it is rebooting. So I watched the movie today.

Let's just say the movie blew away my expectations.

I'm sure there are a lot of reviews that talk about the plot in detail, but for this review I won't dwell much on it. Instead, I'll just give you a few thoughts on the movie.

The Kirk-Spock relationship - pretty much the core of the film. The movie explores Kirk and Spock's development's as individuals struggling to make it or fit in their respective worlds. Kirk is someone who lacks direction in life. He had no one to guide him in his life and went on his way living a life with reckless abandon, with no fear, something that shaped him as a captain. Spock on the other hand, is wrestling with his humanity (as much as we saw it in Star Trek IV) In essence the two are similar. Together they complement each other. Of course this would not effectively work without...

The New Crew - I am particularly impressed with the casting for the new crew of the Enterprise. Chris Pike shows a Kirk that is exactly what I envisioned of him from his younger years, but giving respect to the man who made the role, William Shatner. Zachary Quinto is spot on as the younger Spock, seemingly controlled yet with emotions boiled up inside. Karl Urban was perfect as Bones, bringing the much needed wit to the triumvirate that forms the center of the ensemble. Rounding up the rest of the cast - Simon Pegg had his moments as Scotty, with the perfunctory "It canna take any more!" line, John Cho who also had his moments as Sulu, Zoe Saldana as a strong willed Uhura and Anton Yelchin giving a decent performance as Chekov.

The Old Spock - Old Spock plays a large role in the film, and other than the Kirk-Spock relationship, his presence is the key to tying the old and the new continuities together. Leonard Nimoy never ceases to impress me. But after all, the man has been playing Spock for 40 years, so the role comes naturally to him. In a way this is a chance to pass the baton over to the new cast and crew. His presence improves the film tenfold for me. It's also nice to see what Spock has been up to since his last appearance in the Next Generation two parter "Unification."

The New Enterprise - kind of a mix between the original series Enterprise and the Refit Enterprise/Enterprise-A they made for the movies. The warp effects are more Star Warsy now with no flash at the end (well, the flash was originally intended to cover inconsistencies in the effects, but anyway.) The new bridge looks cool and upgraded from its 1960's look. The engineering deck has been given a total redesign, although from the original series you can tell that something like that was implied. Plus there are like 9000 new phaser arrays for the Enterprise (although there are still like 2 torpedo bays. Go figure.)

The effects - top notch. Great contrast between the Enterprise and the Narada interiors. The phaser, transporter and beam effects were also good. Interesting use of those lens flares. J.J. Abrams (or one of the other guys) was talking about how it represented the brighter more positive tomorrow Star Trek was supposed to represent.

The Homages - made me squeal in fanboy delight. The Vulcan learning thingy from Star Trek IV. Spock's lines from TOS and STVI. Scotty getting a taste of his own medicine ala STIV. The shuttlepods from ST:TMP. The cruel fact about Red Shirts from TOS. Plus that little line done in blatant reference to "The Naked Time."

The Trek-ness of the film - here is where many a Star Trek fan will cry out in Nerd Rage. "The film isn't CANON!" or "it's an action movie!" The theme of the movie may not have that sociopolitical/philosophical context that some of the TOS episodes or movies may have, but it can't be helped in a film that is basically made to establish the new continuity. It's the only gripe I have with the film but then again you can only do too much.

So in the end? Star Trek is a action packed thrill ride. Does it work as a Trek Movie? Yes, it belongs safely in my top five Trek Movies (as #4, guess what the others are.) Does it work as a movie, period? Yes, I believe it does, as I enjoyed it immensely. Does it pay respect to the series it was based upon? Yes.

So what are you waiting for? Go and watch it now!

Zatoichi-fest 2009!! A.K.A. "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king"

Zatoichi, mildly put, is a story about a blind masseur who turns out to be a master swordsman who kicks many different levels of ass for the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed and for great justice. I just had to put in that last line.

Perhaps you’ve already watched the 2003 remake with Takeshi Kitano, and that one was quite a good film with swordplay, cross-dressing geisha and tapdancing! A jidaigeki film with tapdancing!? WTF, right? Many people might not have seen the other films, including a 26 movie series starring the legendary Shintaro Katsu, so I offer to you a few short reviews of a number of the original Katsu films, a 2008 remake and something a little extra.

1) The Tale of Zatoichi (Zatoichi Monogatari)

Scenario: The blind masseur Zatoichi is embroiled in a struggle between two warring factions. He wants nothing of it, of course, but fate conspires to entangle him in the conflict, as another strong ronin arrives at the village with motives of his own.

Comments: This is the first Zatoichi movie, and it is quite different in tone from the other movies. However, this movie establishes most of the plot devices seen in the other films: Zatoichi winning a ton at gambling due to his superhuman senses, him helping out the local townsfolk with their respective problems, and a climactic battle at the end. The action may not be as frenzied as the other movies (and here, there are only two real fighting/action sequences) the real draw of the movie comes from the character Ichi himself. As much as this movie pays attention to the other background characters, this movie is about Ichi himself (we’ll talk about this later in the other films.) This is a man who has acquired unrivaled skills, but does not want to use his skills for killing. The tone is quite serious compared to the other films as well as most of the drama going on.

Stuff: There’s no “swish” sound effect as Zatoichi cuts through his enemies. This is something that gets added on in the later movies of the series. That still doesn’t take away from the fact that he moves so fast sometimes that in the blink of an eye the sword is back in the sheath. Pretty kick-ass.

Rating: I’ll give this one 3.5/5 Katsus

2) Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (Zatoichi Senryo-kubi)

Scenario: After paying his respects to a man he killed (not really his fault,) Zatoichi comes to a town whose townspeople are celebrating because they just paid their taxes. However, thugs then steal said taxes, throwing the said town into one big SNAFU of epic proportions. Of course they blame the blind guy for it. Add a samurai with a whip (!!!) and some other yakuza who want to kill Ichi, and we have this movie.

Comments: This is an entertaining entry in the Zatoichi series, filled with the lightheartedness, kickassery and general frenzy that accompanies the best of the entries in the series. Here, Zatoichi is more a force of nature that passes by the village, and the real focus is in the characters that he meets and changes (or kills.) There isn’t a lot of development for Ichi himself, other than that he is a kind, honorable soul that only hates injustice. The intro sequence is pretty awesome too.

Stuff: Jushiro, the aforementioned whip bearing samurai, is none other than Tomisaburo Wakayama, Shintaro Katsu’s real life brother and star of the later Lone Wolf and Cub films. There was one point in the film when he fights with a katana that I could have sworn he was channeling a little Ogami Itto in there.

Rating: I’ll give this one 3.5/5 Katsus too.

3) Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword (Zatoichi Abare Tako)

Scenario: After being shot by some unscrupulous gentleman, Zatoichi is saved and cared for at an inn, with all expenses paid for by a mysterious benefactor. He decides to repay this person’s kindness by… er… living in this person’s house and doing stuff for them. Turns out this benefactor is the daughter of a local kind yakuza boss, whose river transport business is in danger of being taken over by a stuttering evil yakuza boss. Eventually, another SNAFU of epic proportions ensues. Throw in some fireworks at the end too.

Comments: This is one of the more action packed, plot-light Zatoichi movies. Again this portrays Ichi as a destructive force of nature and the focus is placed on the secondary characters and their individual motivations, although action is the focus of this one. Ichi may seem harmless, but when he kicks ass, he kicks ass. It also features a great fight scene at the end with excellent use of lighting as Zatoichi fights his way like through 50 men in a darkened hallway. IMO one of his best fight scenes at this point in time.

Stuff: It must have been a doozy transporting people by lifting them over your shoulders…

Rating: For the Action alone, I’ll give this one 4/5 Katsus.

4) Fight, Zatoichi, Fight

Scenario: Assassins are after Zatoichi. During one of their assassination attempts, a woman is killed in Ichi’s place, leaving behind a young boy. In her memory, Zatoichi then decides to take the boy to his father in a far province, while killing his assassins around. A pickpocket then joins in the fun at the middle, and at the end, everything is not what it seems to be as everything heads toward a great finale.

Comments: IMO one of the best Zatoichi movies. This movie is more a character study of Ichi himself. At points in the film a procession of the blind reminds us that Zatoichi’s journey is like a pilgrimage, although the intent and the destination are unknown, if any exists at all. Here the focus is on Ichi with a little on the pickpocket he saves. For the first time he is given the temptation of living a more normal life, or at least someone tangible to love in the form of the little boy. He seriously contemplates this at many points in the film, but in the end he realizes that his pilgrimage is one that he must make alone. These scenes, rife with symbolism, make it awesome for me. Aside from the usual Zatoichi staples, the movie diverts a little from the usual formula, along with a few twists towards the end. Add a number of really kick-ass action sequences (changing diapers and killing assassins at the same time? Is there anything more rife with kickassery?) and it makes for one of Ichi’s best adventures of the 26 movie series.

Stuff: This movie was directed by Kenji Misumi, who directed the first film.

Rating: This one deserves 5/5 Katsus.

5) Ichi (2008)

Scenario: Ichi, a blind shamisen player, comes upon a town in search of her father, a certain blind swordmaster (wink.) She then comes across two warring factions of thugs/yakuza, a ronin who cannot draw his sword, and other shenanigans.

Comments: First of all, let’s get something out of our chest.

Ayase Haruka.

Mmmmmmm. Okay. Take it in slowly. Now back to the comments. Wait, no. Let’s look at that a bit longer.

Okay. Ichi, directed by Ping Pong’s Fumihiko Sori, can either be considered a remake or a spiritual sequel to Zatoichi, this time using a cute girl as the titular ass kicking blind swordfighter. The movie contains the usual Zatoichi staples (gambling, helping people, SNAFU at the end) but inherently, compared to the Kitano remake and the Katsu film series, this film is more similar to the very first movie of the series (see above.) Some shots and scenes are very similar to the first film, and the serious/tragic atmosphere lacks the general wackiness/fun of the later Katsu films or the Kitano remake. Instead, the film is more of a meditation on the Zatoichi mythos as it is a reconstruction of it. Here is a young soul who is conflicted between good and evil, and torn between being apathetic to the world around her and finding a friend.

Lots of Ping Pong alums return to the film including a wildly overacting Shido Nakamura (the villain guy, forgot his name) to Yosuke Kubozuka (Peco), who plays the leader of one of the factions. Ayase Haruka does well as a cool yet conflicted, silent Ichi, nothing at all like the bumbling, he’s-humble-but-can-cut-off-your-head Ichi, which may be a plus or minus to you. Plus she’s cute. Nothing beats that.

Standing by itself, Ichi remains a decent film that I’d recommend, but compared to the many films of the series, it lacks a certain warmth the other films have.

Stuff: Ayase Haruka. Yep.

Rating: Compared to the others, I’ll give this one 3/5 Katsus.

6) Zato Duling: The adventures of the cross-eyed swordsman

LOL!!!!! No, this isn’t a joke. This was a Filipino spoof movie made in the 60’s. (They made tons of those I reckon.) Although I’ve only seen parts of it, it is (IIRC) the origin of the old joke about the Japanese Samurai, the American Samurai and the Filipino samurai. The fly cutting thing that the joke was based upon may have been inspired by a sequence in Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword. You might come upon this somewhere in Cinema One or something. Watch it I guess.

 
I'll give this one square root of -1 Katsus just for the LOLZ.

And that wraps it up for Zatoichi-fest 2009! Will there be a sequel? Knowing me, probably not, but who knows?

Sailor Moon Memories

Upon revisiting the first season of Sailor Moon in the original Japanese, I wanted to write about some aspects of the series that I remember from my childhood. Being a 17 year old anime, I was surprised that it still held up after all these years.

Intro

My experience with this series started sometime in late 1994 (or was it early 1995?) when I started seeing commercials for this show on ABC. At the time, Anime was a new thing for me, and in the Philippines, it was only beginning to show signs of increasing popularity after a long slumber (no doubt the limitations for showing certain TV shows at the time was part of its dormant phase in the early nineties/late eighties, although one can argue that Voltes V and numerous anime adaptations like Princess Sarah or Peter Pan were big in their day.)

I didn't care about seeing the anime at first, but my cousin recommended it to me (and it was part of a huge Sunday afternoon cartoon block on Channel 5 - then a fledgeling new channel - which had a number of good shows on it)

I watched the first episode. Funny as hell. Since then, for the next season and a half I fell in love with it. Mostly because it was funny as hell, a break from all the doom and gloom battles of Dragonball Z. And the ending was killer. I actually called ABC 5 a few times to ask when the next new episode was coming up (and I bet a lot of operators were befuddled when loads of phone calls came in asking for new episodes.) I 'broke up' with the series after a long dry spell, as the second season was notorious for reruns. Since then I've never quite looked at the series long and hard enough.

Sailor Moon finished airing its last season (Stars) in the Philippines a number of years ago, after a long run. Again, its last gasp was buried in the current deluge of anime coming here from Japan.

So... my thoughts on Sailor Moon.

The Tagalog Dub was Awesome

It might be part bias since I grew up with it, but the Tagalog dub was Awesome.

I consider Channel 5 and 13's dubs to have the best tagalog dubs of its time. Sure Channel 2 had their high production values, Channel 9 had this English oriented dub team with shows Dragonball, Saint Tail and Dragonball Z, and Channel 7... well Channel 7 had its days, but 5 and 13 had the best dubs.

(Of course, there was the fact that most of these channel's anime were dubbed by the same people. Heh.)

The Tagalog dub had a Filipino version of the main theme (Moonlight Densetsu) and some scenes edited out, such as the opening intro thingy which I realize was in almost every episode. And yet, the Tagalog Dub did one thing that I will always appreciate, and that was to make an already funny show funnier. Let me explain.

For the Sailor Moon Anime, veteran voice actors and actresses were recruited to do the job of bringing these characters to life. If you listen to AM radio, you might have already heard some of them over at DZRH (666 AM.) Voice Actors or Dubbers here in the Philippines are terribly underappreciated, as they get less pay, don't get the same public attention or appreciation as some other people and are virtually invisible in this industry. But these guys are pros. It is hard changing your voice and keeping it that way for at least 20-30 minutes. And these guys voice your favorite anime/telenovela/koreanovela/radio show! Respect.

For Sailor Moon it was Olie De Guzman and Vilma Borromeo as Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars respectively which made the classic first season of the series shine. Even in the original Japanese Sailor Moon started getting interesting the time Sailor Mars was introduced. At that episode (episode 10,) there as a full fledged team instead of just one or two individuals. Plus, the third member (Rei) was one whose personality clashed with the klutzy and incompetent Usagi, and the two bickered, often leading into hilarious situations.

De Guzman and Borromeo for some reason injected fresh chemistry into this pair. I don't know if they adlibbed, it was part of a great translated script or something like that, but when they fought, it was manic and hilarious. They had experience, as in Princess Sarah, they were also cast in two roles against each other (Lavinia and the titular Sarah, but with the tormentor/tormented positions reversed.) I will explore this in a later part of this writeup, but I have this to say.

To Miss De Guzman and Miss Borromeo, who dubbed Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars for the first season of SM, if there is still some sort of Star Awards for Television or FAMAS or some shit, you both deserve some sort of award. Best Actress Pair or something like that. If I had the money I'd pay to make a trophy for you two. I feel you both deserve some kind of accolade a million times more than some talentless shit getting a best Actress award just for looking cute and shedding a few tears. Voice Acting is HARD, yo.

Moving on, as the season went on towards the more dramatic/epic episodes, everyone started speaking Taglish. I have never seen this work on any other show except this one. (No, Initial D Fourth Stage, it didn't work that well for you.) This was, of course, awesome to see. Remember when Bobby (or was it Phil) Cruz as Neflite/Nephrite started talking about eating Chocolate Ice Cream? Epic shit right there boss. Or Kunzite was speaking in Taglish about how he will never be defeated or something like that?

They have to show this series again one day in Tagalog in HERO or some other channel, even just for the first season. And DON'T redub it. The first one was perfect.

Funniest Episodes Ever

Episode 11 -Usagi vs Rei? A Nightmare in Dreamland

This was an awesomely funny episode, in Tagalog or English. Usagi and Rei go to an amusement park and fight over absolutely everything, even a poor child who managed to get between the two. In the Tagalog version is enhanced by the comedy that ensues between the two and the chemistry the two actresses have.

In another sequence, Sailor Moon and Mars are both hypnotized and run around following what seems to be Tuxedo Mask, when in fact they are riding brooms (and looking like idiots.)

This was the first episode that explored Moon and Mars' bickering, and the episode had a lot of comedy in it. Fun to watch after many viewings.

Episode 31 - Loved and Chased! Luna's Worst Day Ever

This was a Luna-centric episode, and one of the funniest of the series. Most of the episode is actually from or inspired by Gone With The Wind. Luna is being chased by some cats when suddenly a fishbone stops them ala Tuxedo Mask's Rose. It is actually a fat cat who is apparently attracted to Luna (and his name is Rhett Butler.) A lot of comedic subplots occur, including:

* Rei Hino can't get a date
* Sailor Moon in her usual hijinks
* Zoisite tries to find the something-the rainbow crystal, leading him to the girl who is the owner of Rhett Butler, but he realizes that the cat is the monster. He goes to the sewer much to his disgust, and upon reaching a tunnel, he finds that it is covered in rats, and he releases what is the gayest anime character scream ever made.

You have to hear it to believe me.

The Ending was Epic

The last few episodes of the series were amazing, as at the time I was watching it, 1) I had never seen a conclusion to ANY animated series, 2) none had shown most of the protagonists end up severely screwed and 3) none had come up with a satisfying ending to the series that made one want even more.

There were almost tears in my eyes as the events of the last episodes unfolded on Philippine TV. I was but 10 or so years old back then. Note that those were almost tears. I would never be so emotionally moved by an anime until, maybe, Honey and Clover.

The Similarities to Sentai

I've been reintroduced to Sentai in the past few months and it's clear that Sailor Moon was intended as a fusion of shoujo and this genre. The Stock Footage, the monster a week formula, the adviser character, even the transformations and the upgrade at the middle of the series are all there. All it didn't have was the giant robots.

In Conclusion

There are a lot more things to discuss, but hell, I guess I can stop here. The show still remains a cornerstone of the Magical Girl Genre and in itself an anime classic for years to come.

Fly High, Aviators!

Chojin Sentai Jetman is THE greatest Super Sentai Series ever created. EVER.

I have had a lasting nostalgia for Tokusatsu productions from Japan as a kid, back when I knew them as these shows with people in plastic and spandex suits fighting guys in rubber monster suits. The special effects astounded me everytime, even if it was just the same stock footage over and over again, and I remember the cryptic text in Japanese, "tsuzuku" (to be continued) at the end of every episode.

From dramatic fare such as Maskman (a show that until recently had been my top contender for favorite Super Sentai,) and Bioman (considered by many Filipino Tokusatsu fans to be a cherished nostalgic classic) to weird campy fare like Shaider, and total children's fluff like Machine Man (who could forget the car driven by lying down, the flying baseball, or the cape made of a tablemat?) I devoured tokusatsu in my childhood.

Ironically, I had 'grown out' of Tokusatsu and Super Sentai when Jetman first aired on Philippine TV on RPN Channel 9. I had dismissed it, along with the other series that had been showing (IBC-13's Turbo Ranger, ABC-5's Goggle V and Fiveman, as well as a load of other series) as not as good as the classics I had watched in my childhood.

How wrong I was.

So why is Jetman the greatest Super Sentai? Let me say the reasons why:

1. It has all the good Super Sentai cliches - Like Maskman, it has the "my loved one is an enemy" cliche (expanded into no less than TWO love polygons by near series end,) there's the part where the robot gets pwned at the series half, only to be helped by another new robot (yay for new toys to buy) the villains get a major upgrade near the end, and there's this meddling new bad guy that you see near the series' end. Plus the climactic battle at the end.

2. It doesn't fall into the monster a week pattern - despite the cliches, the series does a good job of avoiding the boring monster a week pattern of previous series (monster causes trouble, heroes stop them and defeat monster, heroes fight and defeat giant version of monster, everyone is happy.) In one instance the heroes don't want to fight the monster; leading to a situation where no finishing move is done and the monster actually surrenders. Other episodes don't even go to the "fighting the giant monster" stage, or there is no monster for that episode/week, giving way to (gasp!) actual characterization and damn good writing for a Super Sentai.

3. Even the silly episodes are entertaining - in one episode Ako (Blue Swallow) is shown to have a sempai who is a ramen freak (no doubt this episode was sponsored by Nissin or something like that) who collects vintage ramen. Suddenly this ramen beast thing named God Ramen (WTF!!!) appears and helps him make the perfect ramen which he calls Ako-chan, where he promotes this by dressing up in ridiculously fake glasses and beard ala Groucho Marx, singing double entendres about how he wants to "eat" Ako-chan. WTF!!!!!!!!!!

In another episode a dimensional monster tries to live good because he is too nice to defeat the Jetmen (in one case he almost causes the total defeat of the Jetmen but fails due to a random act of kindness) and becomes an assistant at a hair salon. WTF!!!!!

4. Great writing, even if you have to suspend your disbelief sometimes - there are some great standalone episodes, like the one where two of the Jetmen are trapped in the bus where strange murders occur in the bus whenever it comes through a tunnel. Everyone suspects everyone else, when it turns out that the bus itself was the culprit! Pretty clever stuff for a Super Sentai.

5. The enemies were just too badass - 70% of the episodes, you see the Jetmen's ass getting kicked royally, with most of them turned into chess pieces, trapped inside pictures, that kind of crazy shit. Gray was an example of "cool" badass, a cyborg who enjoys fine arts and listening to classical piano music (not making this up!) Emperor Tranza, who appears later in the show, demonstrates his powers disguised as a human by outperforming all of the Jetmen in their respective talents (beating the Yellow Jetman in an eating competition!) and making great plans to ruin the Jetmen's day. Radiguet is one of the baddest villains EV4R and you want to see him bite the dust because he is so evil.

At one point even the home base of the Jetmen are attacked. Villains actually entering the HOME BASE, which is like their heaven. It's like if Dr. Man went inside the Biodragon and attacked the Biomen in their own turf. Of course, the Jetmen retaliate by attacking the Villains' home base, the Vyrock.

Also, the mechas, as invincible as they seemed in previous installments, are raped pretty bad this time around. No simple burying in the ground like Maskman's Great Five Robo, no way boss. Instead the robots get their arms chopped off, their stomachs disemboweled. Even the finishing attack of the Jetmen's Jet Icarus, the Birdonic Sabre, gets defeated and chopped in half, at least TWO times in the series.

6. the Red guy was not the coolest one in the block - As much as we, as kids, wanted to be Red One or Red Mask in our little playdates, Gai Yuuki (Black Condor) will forever be the true coolest Jetman. Going his own way always and not really caring at first for world peace, he strikes a friendly rivalry with the less cool Red Hawk. Their heads butt frequently throughout the first part of the series, culminating into a flat out brawl near the series midpoint. In one instance he singlehandedly kills one enemy monster, transforming while walking in the middle of explosions. Badass.

7. MECHAS OMG WTF - there were not two, but THREE mecha in this series. Two of which combined into a bigger, more gianter (hehe, "gianter") robot (who STILL got beat up by the enemy) and the third, annoying ADHD robot turned into a cannon that served as the gianter robot's weapon. All three got their asses kicked in the end.

8. WEAPONS OMG WTF - they had these cool swords that you could attack to their blasters, and later in the series, they even had new blasters that they could lock into their old blasters, forming new, powerful, BIGGER blasters. Oh, and they had this car that turned into their cannon (which was also destroyed by the enemy - see, this enemy is really badass, or the Jetmen are wimps)

9. The Evil Plans were actually working - often you just laugh at the incompetence of the villains in making any sensible, concrete plans for world domination/world destruction/killing the heroes. Here, their plans were sensible, often worked to an extent, and would cause the Jetmen serious damage. Made me kind of admire the villains for what they did.

10. The Characters - ALL of the characters had their own feelings, nuances, likes and dislikes, even the villains. Each of the Jetmen (and each of the Villains) had at least one episode to tell their story. At the center of this are complex love polygons within the Jetmen (Red, Black, Yellow and Pink) outside the Jetmen (Gray, Red, and Maria and a little Black) which makes for very interesting characters. It also makes you sad when a major villain or character bites the dust.

This led to the series having the best developed characters in Super Sentai.

11. The ending - I can't say anything about the ending, but IMO it's one of the most surprising, shocking endings of a Super Sentai yet. Fortunately for fans of the series, the story is continued in a (probably non-canon, but meh) manga that resolves all of the hanging plot threads.

Give Jetman a try and see if you think it's the best Super Sentai Ever. Like me.

Cinemalaya 2007 Catchup: Ligaw Liham

Back in the day, we didn't have mobile phones or the internet. Sometimes we didn't have phones at all. I could remember in my childhood, before the days of PLDT's Zero Backlog program, of going to the PLDT center in Alabang (a 20-30 minute drive from home) just to make a call to my grandparents in Bulacan. Connecting to others was difficult, and often the only way one could communicate to another through long distances was through letters.

This theme of connection is mixed in with a man's first love in the independent film Ligaw (na) Liham. Set sometine in the 70s, in a place where letter writing may be the only line for people to communicate with the outside world, Nor is a man who is in control of this system when it suddenly stops working for one reason or another. Although placed in an outsider role in the community (he is considered the village idiot or something to that effect) he uses his power over the letter writing system to write letters to a village lass, Karen, in the place of her husband. Soon the exchange of letters makes him fall in love with the girl. The usual complications stemming from this unlikely correspondence ensues.

The film is one of the examples of increasing film production quality in recent Cinemalaya entries. Although technically there are no problems (and the film deserves some merit in terms of cinematography, editing and music,) and there are solid performances from both leads, the film may strike some as paced too slowly or overlong.

There isn't much else I can say about the film but it explores its themes adequately and gives a good, if slightly flawed, story of a first love.