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Mirai (2018)

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Posted on March 12, 2022 by Andrew

This movie’s central character is not the title character. It’s a lad aged about four named Kun (Moka Kamishiraishi). While it is his journey and growth in maturity the film chiefly follows, his whole family also has to adapt and change and it’s all thanks to their newest member, baby Mirai.

The features from director Mamoru Hosoda and team have been consistently good and occasionally great, and with Mirai Studio Chizu has created a film both for all ages and … (read more)

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Pulse (2001)

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Posted on March 11, 2007 by Alan

I’m gonna start this review with a little literary diversion. Sometime fantasist John Crowley wrote a book a few years back entitled Aegypt. The title was a deliberate displacement, taking an archaic spelling of Egypt and infusing that name with a mythic, alternate reality. By the same token the film Pulse is also known as Kairo.

Now this is not a deliberate thing, of course, Kairo being Japanese for ‘circuit’ — bear with me here — but it … (read more)

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Casshern (2004)

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Posted on November 25, 2005 by Alan

Well that was a frivolous synopsis for a film that is anything but. Casshern in that form, and, indeed, from the look of the trailer, appears to be nothing more than a pretty, CGI filled actioner.

But although those elements are part and parcel of the flick, Casshern is primarily a long, bleak and bittersweet analysis of the futility of war and the eternal capacity of human beings for intolerance. No, really.

It’s a theme played out in a number … (read more)

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