Back in 2022, there was this odd film that popped into the world, Bullet Train, which took place on a Shinkansen travelling from Tokyo to Osaka. For some, it was their film of the year, but I ended up being much more mixed on the movie. However, there was one thing I was thinking about when I sat down to watch the film – is it geographically accurate? This is what we will look at today.
I have taken the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka before, so I thought this was something I could tick off in the cinema, but some of the station locations are shown very briefly or only in part. It took seeing it on digital release to nail this map down.
TL;DR – Several interesting ideas are going on here, but they never coalesce into something worthy.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Disclosure – I paid to see this film
Bullet Train Review –
When you are making an action film, there are many different styles that you could employ. There is the grizzled machismo of movies like Rambo, the high-octane yet safe for families action of the Fast and the Furious films, or the grimy rawness of films like The Northman. But one of the more recent action styles has been this smooth, free-flowing, and fast-talking style of cinema that was thrown into the spotlight with Deadpool. While that style has been divisive, I have generally enjoyed it, and today we see another example of it in the form of Bullet Train.
So to set the scene, it has been a long road of recovery for ‘Lady Bug’ (Brad Pitt) since he got shot doing a job in Johannesburg. But he is finally ready to take on a new mission, and his handler (Sandra Bullock) has picked an easy one for him. He must go on to a bullet train stationed in Tokyo, Japan, retrieve a briefcase with a train sticker on the handle, and remove it before the train reaches Kyoto. The only issue is that ‘Lady Bug’ is not the only operative working a job on that train as “Lemon” (Brian Tyree Henry), “Tangerine” (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), “The Wolf” (Benito A. Martínez Ocasio), “The Prince” (Joey King), “The Father” (Andrew Koji), and “The Hornet” (Zazie Beetz) all have their own plans in how this will go.
TL;DR – A really good film up until the point it gets bogged down in its own worldbuilding
Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit scene
Review –
It has been a long road trying to adapt video games to the big screen and so far there have not been many (if any) that have actually pulled it off. Some have got close and today we take a look at one that also is very close, even if it just does not quite get there.
So to set the scene, in Japan, there are three good friends Kotona (Abby Trott), Haru (Alejandro Saab), and Yu (Max Mittelman). Kotona and Haru are a couple and Yu is the third wheel, but not really, though he is confined to a wheelchair after a childhood accident that killed his parents. Life is great, school is good, however, all is ripped apart when one-day Kotona realises that she is being stalked by a creep. Yu and Haru rush to help her but they are too late when they arrive a masked figure stabs Kotana with a weird blade. They rush to try and get her to a hospital when in the middle of the street they are ripped into another world and now Kotona is missing, their phones are compasses, and everything is different.
TL;DR – Starts of being a look in how people explore trauma and then becomes a case study in abusive relationships
Score – 1 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – I don’t know if there is a no post-credit scene
Warning – This film has extensive depictions of abuse
Review –
I have watched a lot of films in my life and I have review hundreds of them over the years on this site. There have been a number of films that had I not been watching them for review I probably would have turned off the TV or walked out of the theatre but I haven’t because of a sense of professionalism. However, today we view a film that finally broke me. I have not seen the end of this film before writing the review, nor do I care to find out what happened.
So to set the scene, we open in on Japan, beset by news of a serial killer, as we see a certain Joe Murata (Kippei Shîna) being creepy as hell. Elsewhere there is a guy that is new to Tokyo and quickly befriends a bunch of filmmakers. They find out he is a virgin and so they take him to their friend, who then takes all of them to help get an old classmate to appear in their next play. That same classmate who Joe Murata has just set his eyes on.
TL;DR – An ambitious series
drawing inspiration from multiple religious and mystical frameworks that while
pioneering in many respects, completely fails to stick the landing
Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars
Review –
Today I get to finally explore the third pillar of 1990s sci-fi anime with the
massively influential Neon Genesis
Evangelion. For me, this was almost a form of closure given how much I have
watched the other two pillars Cowboy
Bebop and Ghost in the Shell but
I never got to see Evangelion. It was
also interesting to see a show that has been massively influential to the genre
but watching it with 20 years of extra context on top of it. Well if nothing
else, the ending stinger to last year’s Desert Bus now makes sense. With
that in mind, let’s dive in and explore Hideaki Anno’s work of gods, and
angels, and science, and man.
So to set the scene, in the year 2000 a great calamity arouse across the world
when the second impact occurred in Antarctica blasting the icy continent to
ruin and melting all its ice causing extensive flooding across the world. The
UN authority declared that the cause was a giant meteorite impact, hence common
term of it being ‘the second impact’ (okay sort of, but also sort of not, it
gets complicated). However, this is all a cover, because what really happened
is that a creature of great power was discovered under the ice, this Angel was
called Adam and something the researchers did trigger him destroying
everything. 15 years later, Shinji Ikari (Megumi Ogata/ Spike Spencer/ Casey
Mongillo) is running through deserted streets to a pick-up location. The whole
area has gone into emergency lockdown for some unknown reason, and that reason
turns out to be a second angel that everyone kind of expected was coming. Just
before he is crushed, Shinji is rescued by Captain Misato Katsuragi (Kotono
Mitsuishi/ Allison Keith/ Carrie Keranen) and taken to Tokyo-3 where a
secretive organisation Nerv has their headquarters. The leader of Nerv is
Shinji’s father Gendo Ikari (Fumihiko Tachiki/ Tristan MacAvery/ Ray Chase) who
is at best distant, but a more fair description would be icy or even abusive.
However, Shinji does not have time to process that because he is announced to
be the Third Child, and one of only a few people that can pilot an Evangelion
which he has to do like now.
TL;DR – Beautiful and yet also a bit melancholy. It takes what is a quite tired trope of cinema and breathes new life into it.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
Last week I managed to catch a showing of a new anime film Weathering
With You. It was beautiful, bittersweet, visually stunning, and
emotionally resonate. Well after having such a profound experience with that
film I had a look back at director/writer Makoto Shinkai’s filmography and came
across Your Name. I had missed it
when it can out in cinemas, so I made sure to check it out as soon as I could.
Well one week later and what would you know, here it was live on the SBS Movie
channel here in Australia and boy was it worth the watch.
So to set the scene, Mitsuha Miyamizu (Mone Kamishiraishi) lives in a quiet
village in the mountains of Japan’s Hida region. Itomori is a town with a long
history of tradition but also of tragedy with fires destroying much of the town’s
history. Mitsuha is a Miko (shrine maiden) in the Shinto temple that her family
runs under the watchful hands of her grandmother Hitoha (Etsuko Ichihara).
Mitsuha is frustrated with her life and where it is going and dreams of leaving
her small town and moving to the big city in Tokyo. Well one day she gets her
wish, but when she wakes up in the body of Taki Tachibana (Ryûnosuke Kamiki) a
high school boy living in Tokyo, things don’t quite go the way she plans.
TL;DR – There is a lot I could say about this film, but the most important thing is that there were times when I became overwhelmed with its beauty.
Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
Oh wow, just wow. I have seen a lot of films in my time, and a lot of animated
films, but rarely do they have moments that just take my breath away. Today
we get to take a look at a film that does just that by exploring a new world
and mythology that might not be as familiar to people.
So to set the scene, we open in on Hina (Nana Mori) as she holds the hand of
her mother in the hospital. Outside is nothing but rain, with the weather
matching her life at that moment. But out of the corner of her eye, she sees
one ray of sunshine and she runs to it. About a year later Hodaka (Kotaro Daigo)
arrives by boat to Tokyo, he has run away from home and is looking for a new
life in the big city. But life is tough and he ends up on the street where he
relents and starts working for Keisuke Suga (Shun Oguri) who runs an occult magazine
of dubious quality. However, while working he hears of a girl that can bring
the sun, which given that it has already rained for a month is something that a
lot of people are interested in.
TL;DR – This is a film that blends the idea of an advertisement with the presentation of a documentary and works about as well as you would expect
Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
Growing up, one of the touchstones in my early cinematic life was anime, you
would get it in the morning on TV, which I had to tape on VCR for watching
later. Indeed, I think every one of my generations loathed those opening sounds
of the first episode of Pokémon
because it meant that Cheez TV had
run out of new episodes and was starting it from the beginning again. As I grew
up, it was a part of my cinematic world that I just couldn’t keep up with, and every
time I go to conventions I see an array of cosplayers showing my just how many
shows I have missed. Well when I saw that there was a new documentary about anime
on Netflix, I was really interested because it would be nice to walk down
memory lane and to explore the future again. Unfortunately, that is not quite
what we got.
The premise for this documentary is that Netflix set the director Alex Burunova
of working out the answer to a question ‘What is Anime’? Alex, having no experience
with the genre other than a tangential understanding of its influence decided
to throw herself into the world of anime and manga and the sub-cultures that
consume and make it. This, of course, meant going straight to the source and
talking with the directors and animators where it is all made in Japan. It is
good that right from the start, they make it clear where the genesis of this
project came from, it was a Netflix project and Alex was hired to make it. So
when the documentary goes to Adi Shankar the creator of the Castlevania Netflix series as its first
interview it feels like the right jumping-off point for the show. Well instead
of jumping off from there, this is where the show stayed.
TL;DR – This is an
interesting premise and it is playing with some interesting themes, even if it
doesn’t quite always come together.
Score – 3 out of 5 stars
Review –
In recent years Netflix has been starting to make a big push into the anime arena
possible as a way of holding off some of its competitors. Well in the same week
that Neon Genesis Evangelion finally
made its way on to the streaming service we get an adaptation of one of the
most famous manga series 7Seeds.
Well, you have animation, set in a post-apocalyptic world, and add a growing
mystery, well count me in.
So to set the scene, one day Natsu Iwashimizu (Nao Tōyama) wakes up in the
middle of the ocean on a sinking ship. The last thing she remembers is having a
big dinner of all her favourite things and then she wakes up all alone. But
before she has a chance to process what is going on Mozu (Kazuhiko Inoue) is
screaming for her to get into a life raft. The two of them, along with Arashi (Jun
Fukuyama) and Semimaru (Katsuyuki Konishi) find themselves on an abandoned
island filled with odd creatures and plants. Is there anyone coming to help
them? Where are they? Is there anyone left? Well, the answer to that is a large
no because a cataclysm has happened. Now from here, we will be looking at the season
as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.
TL;DR – Today I explore the museums along the Brisbane river as I walk from GOMA down to Southbank
Article –
I had a day off this week and given it was perfect weather, warm but before the heat of summer hits us, I thought I would take some time winding down Brisbane’s Cultural District among its brutalist buildings, and lush Bougainvillea. All of this is right next to the Brisbane River so it is hard to get lost with that guideline always being there for you. So with today’s Explore-It, we will take you through all the museums, some old, some new, all full of interesting things, and best of all, every place I visited you can enter for free.
TL;DR Movie Reviews and Analysis 