Hey folks, Harry here... This wasn't much of a surprise to anyone.... I mean you could tell that the effects were cornball, but personally - they made me giggle in the trailers and I might somehow enjoy it... then again, it may lead to the ripping out of my eyeballs... but these are the risks we take in our adventurous journey in cinema...
Hey Harry and Co., TOKYOSCOPE here with the first English language look at the DEVILMAN live-action movie. Hotly anticipated by J-dorks all over the globe, Devilman is based on the classic 1972 manga and subsequent DEVILMAN anime created by mister psychosexual hyper-violence himself Go Nagai and Dynamic Productions.
The movie is set to open October 9th, and you can watch at trailer at the official website Click Here. A direct link to the trailer is here: Click Here
My friend, a fellow agent of ESPY who I'll call AKUMA OTOKO, saw the finished film at a sneak preview in Tokyo last week. AKUMA has impeccable taste in movies, so I tend to trust his opinions. His first email to me telling me his impressions was a doozy:
"I saw Devilman. Believe me, it's a nightmare. It's better to poking your eyes out with your bare hands than to watch this crap. NEVER SEE IT, if you want to live. FUCK. I SAY FUCK! FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK! Those who involved in this movie must suffer like hell and die the most painful death. FUCK."
But I wanted specifics, I begged, and AKUMA graciously supplied them.
"1. Devilman and the demon species have no history in the movie. Demons are some kind of sperm-like cells which are found in Antarctica. The sperm jumps into Akira Fudoh's body and...voila, Devilman is born. Someone even says to Devilman at this moment, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEVILMAN" in English with bad pronunciation. I don't know what the fuck is going on.
2. Sirene totally sucks ass. She is supposed to be one of the most powerful demons of all time, but this Sirene is a stupid chick wearing a silly chicken-like costume.
3. During the whole movie, you have no idea what is going on. There is a Demon Buster squad (with the Star of David as their symbol...I think Simon Wiesenthal should sue), but I don't know where they came from. The Government never appears in the movie.
4. Devilman just cries and cries. Just like those sissy kids in Battle Royale II.
5. Everything is explained (or the director thinks it is) with dialogues, like "The war has begun," "The whole world went mad," and blah blah blah. Sorry, I don't buy it. Show me. Don't tell me.
6. Susumu-chan (from the Go Nagai manga "Susumu-chan Dai Shock") appears, and his parents were demons. BUT, Susumu-chan survives and survives, and he is the only one human being who is left standing on earth after Armageddon. This made me really really, really mad. If you read the manga, you'd know why. In it, Susumu thinks he's safe, and then you see his severed head on the floor. At the end, a half-demon slut and a high school student walk into the sunset, saying there is hope and future. DIE! NOW!
7. The problem is not only with the script, but with the direction too. There is no information about what is happening or where it's happening. The audience is forced to be confused all the time. The clock in Hiroyuki Nasu (the director) stopped around 1980. The Internet never existed in his universe, or Kogals, or anything modern. You see very old-fashioned teenage delinquents that look like a bad joke, and there are some very cheap set, which only can be seen in old Toei movies or Daiei TV series.
9. Devilman creator Go Nagai is known for his violence, eroticism, and nonsense jokes. You see none of these qualities in this picture.
Oh, and the special effects. It's not even PlayStation 1 CGI at all, more like Sega Saturn. It's like, the whole CGI is just a pre-pre-visualization. BURN IN HELL, MOTHERFUCKERS!"
Impossible to top that last line, so TOKYOSCOPE out…
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"This rat bucket is sinking, so groove."
-- Skipper Todd
