Theatrical Trailer For Tsutsumi’s Massive 20TH CENTURY BOYS Is Kind Of Underwhelming, Really …

Reader Comments

1. kevin 06/29/2008 @ 5:12am

   Looks pretty good to me.. I guess it’s hard to say because it’s just a bunch of shots of people looking surprised. Personally I’m hoping it’s good because the idea is pretty awesome.

   D.P. is Satoru Karasawa.. They’ve worked together a lot (The Sword of Alexander, Sushi King Goes to New York, Chinese Dinner, etc.)

2. Caterpillar 06/29/2008 @ 5:25am

   It’s a massive three film monstrosity so there’s probably a lot of footage that was shot by first, second, third and forth assistant directors. Same thing that makes Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy so uneven. Every once in a while you see a scene you know he directed himself but in between there’s tons of poorly staged and uninspiring stuff that was shot by much less talented folks in order to get the thing in the can in less than 5 years. That’s one more reason to love someone like Guillermo del Toro who insists to shoot every single frame of film himself.

3. MikeOutWest 06/29/2008 @ 7:30am

   Looks like this movie is keeping all its cards very close to its chest. The trailer’s done its job though - I am very intrigued to see what all the characters are reacting to in such a shocked manner.

4. Andrew Cunningham 06/29/2008 @ 2:36pm

   Looks amazing.
   And Caterpillar, we are talking a TV director; he’s used to shooting on a lightning fast schedule and making it look good. He has a number of second unit directors from his TV work, all accustomed to shooting in his style, which is all over every shot in this preview. He’s given a number of interviews talking about how there should be no difference in shooting style between TV and movie, which is why his TV shows look better than anything else on TV in Japan, and why his movies all have a sort of low budget indie look, even when they clearly had quite a big one.

5. verisimilitude 06/29/2008 @ 4:01pm

   What’s his rational for maintaining the same shooting style for television and film?  Especially in the case of 20th Century Boys which is meant to be a wide theatrical release. 

   Adopting stylistic norms used in television for use in a theatrical film makes the film look like every other Japanese TV dorama.  It’s ugly and generic.  I hate the abundance of close ups and medium shots. 

   This of course says nothing about how well it will do in the box office.  Considering how popular Urasawa is, it’ll probably do very well.

6. MikeOutWest 06/29/2008 @ 11:01pm

   “I hate the abundance of close ups and medium shots” - in the trailer. As I mentioned earlier I think the makers are being deliberately obtuse about the movie’s actual content. There are signs and portents that there is something Big at the heart of this movie and obviously they don’t want to give away the money shots. I suppose we won’t know for sure until someone has actually managed to see the finished product.

7. verisimilitude 06/30/2008 @ 10:07am

   I hope you’re right MikeOutWest.

8. ForgottenFilms 06/30/2008 @ 2:40pm

   Definitely hoarding it’s money shots for the release.
   I like that.

9. Andrew Cunningham 06/30/2008 @ 10:08pm

   Have you watched any of his TV work? Or compared that to what every other TV show looks like? The difference is like night and day. Little tricks like putting the close ups off to the side of the screen, to more dramatically off-kilter angles - and a lot of what sets his work apart is editing, which is paced quite differently from most TV shows, with a lot more cuts.
   When he talks about shooting TV and movies the same way he doesn’t mean shooting them worse; he means achieving the look and feel of a movie on a TV budget, and he means shooting a movie as economically as a TV series.
   I think Sword of Alexander, for all its flaws, was definitely an attempt to make a story of that scale quickly and cheaply and still have it come off well. This will obviously not look as cheap, but we are talking a manga that consists mainly of talking heads, so his experience making talking heads feel quite the opposite of staid may well turn out to make him the perfect man for the job.

10. verisimilitude 07/01/2008 @ 5:37am

    Yes.  I’ve seen some of Kindachi, all three Trick series and Ikebukuro West Gate Park. 

    As you probably know, projecting a film on a theatre screen is different than showing it on television.  The difference in screen size means a shooting strategy which is adept at exploiting the viewing scale (and aspect ratio) of broadcast television might not be a suitable shooting strategy for a large theatre screen.  And vice versa. 

    That’s why his choice of an undifferentiated shooting style seems puzzling.  He’s limiting himself by not taking advantage of, and not considering, how the film is going to be seen.

11. verisimilitude 07/01/2008 @ 5:41am

    ...which seems to be the case for this specific trailer.  Cause I still contend that it looks butt ugly!

12. kevin 07/01/2008 @ 6:44am

    Judging from the Japanese website the first film ends at the part of the story set in the year 2000.. That means the only money shots in the movie are a few explosions and then the giant plague-spreading spider robot at the end. The budget aspect has been totally overblown or something was lost in translation—it’s 56 million for 3 movies. Rumors of massive Hollywood-scale awesomeness have been perpetuated on various blogs because of a blurb on Tokyograph that said “possibly the biggest domestic production of this year,” which, if you really think about it, isn’t saying much at all.

13. MikeOutWest 07/01/2008 @ 3:32pm

    ah, victims of our own hyperbole!

Post Your Comments

• Next Entry
• Previous Entry