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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

CASSHERN FOR FREE IN NYC

  
 
Grady Hendrix
17:19 / 05.12.07
I hate to shill here, but Subway Cinema (of which I'm a member) is presenting a free screening of the complete, 141 minute, cracked masterpiece, CASSHERN on the big screen in NYC this Saturday, December 8 at 10pm at the ImaginAsian theater on East 59th street between Second and Third Avenues.

I'll be posting a link to a place where you can get trailers and so on and so forth soon, but I also wanted to take a minute to say something about Asian psychedelic sci-fi. I love science fiction when it has something to say, but when I'm expected to just go in and ooh and aah over the gadgets I tend to get annoyed. But slinking out of Asia since 2000 there's been a wave of psychedelic sci-fi that folks on this board should try if they haven't tasted it already. I'd love to see people add to this list, but here's what's out there off the top of my head:

CASSHERN - an all-digital, alternate future steampunk flick that starts out as a Space Nazis versus Robo Commie smackdown and morphs into a prayer for the survival of the human race in the mushroom-cloud packed finale. Waaay long, but way worth it this movie's slick look totally hides the fact it was made on a shoestring out of home-built computers and is based on a failed 1970's television cartoon.

SAVE THE GREEN PLANET - this Korean horror, sci-fi, drama, comedy freak out starts with a basic concept: unhinged, paranoid loony thinks his boss is an alien, so he abducts him and decides to apply the torture stick until said boss shows his antenna. Then the movie turns itself inside out when we discover that the psycho might just be right and mankind may be an alien experiment that's become fatally infected with the violence virus and is slated for destruction at the hands of disappointed ET's. Or not. Stick around as the end credits roll for a beautiful coda that re-examines the entire movie from another point of view.

IZO - I'm not the biggest fan of this movie, but Takashi Miike's time-traveling samurai who's vengeance incarnate movie belongs on this list through sheer virtue of the fact that watching a tactical SWAT team machine gun Edo era Japan is intensely thrilling. This is probably the loopiest of the bunch but, again, the emphasis is firmly on the violence virus, imagined here as an out-of-control, immortal swordsman.

MIND GAME - an animated flick from Japan that will blow your mind and make you want to go on living, MIND GAME is rooted in the contemporary world but it's so full of surreal digressions - a time-traveling superhero, life in the belly of a whale, the first woman in space - that it feels like the present viewed through the lens of the future. Imagine if William Gibson took a cocktail of Ecstasy and LSD then made an animated feature film in 12 hours flat and you'll get some idea of the magic of MIND GAME.

RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL - deeply hated, this massive sci-fi flick from Korea almost sunk the studio that made it when it bombed at the box office but it's the smartest look at gaming culture I've ever seen. A young noodle delivery boy falls for a girl who may just be an avatar in an MMORPG and then come the Cobra Gunships and the Buddhist philosophy. Nothing can top the image of a machine gun toting cartoon come to life and destroying downtown Seoul to the tune of the Neville Brothers singing "Ave Maria." This is the kind of movie that you'll either turn off halfway through or take under your wing and nurture into a full-blown obsession.

FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT and THE TASTE OF TEA - not quite sci-fi but what else do you call two movies by the same director that feature a high school orchestra with David Cronenberg New Flesh instruments, a little girl haunted by a 50-foot-tall doppelganger, a sunflower that grows to the size of a universe, a UFO, and dancing creatures from another dimension? THE TASTE OF TEA is a family drama/comedy/whacked-out trip that is good for everyone, but only watch FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT if you've got a bunch of friends over and good supply of drugs and/or alcohol. Open your heart to it and it will reward you deeply but be warned that it is a non-narrative movie that's close to three hours long. But isn't that the case for all good psychedelia?
 
 
PatrickMM
02:44 / 06.12.07
Of these, Funky Forest would get my top recommendation. The movie is truly insane, a stream of consciousness journey through increasingly bizarre scenarios. It's truly like no other film you'll ever see. The only comprable experience is Inland Empire, another three hour surrealist, barely narrative epic. Funky Forest is a lot lighter than IE, but it's got that same crazy energy. At first, you're wondering how they'll sustain it for the three hours, but after a while you just settle in and go to the crazy place this film wants to take you to.
 
 
lord nuneaton savage
08:44 / 06.12.07
Those sound fucking great. Are they readily available in this country, I wonder (GB)?
 
 
Closed for Business Time
10:24 / 06.12.07
I got Casshern off the torrents.. HISS BOO THIEF!
Left me mostly happy but also a tad confused. I'd love to see the other ones tho.
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
12:50 / 06.12.07
wait, the subway cinema site says this screening is exclusive to people who have a NY Anime Festival badge?

is this right? how do I get one of those?
 
 
Grady Hendrix
13:03 / 06.12.07
Never fear! The screening was originally for NY Anime Fest badge holders only, but now we've made it open to the public. Here's how it works: NY Anime Fest badge holders get first seating, then at 10pm on the dot (we'll start the screening a few minutes late) all remaining seats go to people in a stand-by line on a first-come-first-served basis...for free! There're plenty of bars to wait in around there, and with over 250 seats in the theater I'm sure anyone who wants to see it will get in.

Also, if people want to check out the movies mentioned above, here's a link to a post with trailers for CASSHERN and the rest of the movies mentioned, as well as info on the special guests at the screening (who are very weird) and more details on the screening.

And, just so folks know: SAVE THE GREEN PLANET, IZO, THE TASTE OF TEA and, next year, FUNKY FOREST: THE FIRST CONTACT will all be available on a US Region 1 DVD. MIND GAME is available on a Japanese-only DVD but it is not region coded and it's got English subtitles. Here's a link to more info on the movie - which is my favorite of the bunch.
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
13:25 / 06.12.07
Yay! I will be trying to bring friends!
 
 
My Mom Thinks I'm Cool
15:27 / 11.12.07
Thought the movie was beautiful! All my friends bailed so I was alone, but on the bright side they let me in without having to wait in any kind of line at all. I felt bad for the subway cinema people since so few of us came.

As for the movie: visually totally amazing. If as has been said this was done on home PCs then somebody is spending way too much money making those $100 million hollywood blockbusters. In places this looked as good or better than Sky Captain or Sin City - though I think there was more live action and less green screen here - not sure.

As with many anime movies I was slightly disappointed by the ending, which was ambiguous and failed to resolve things well, pointlessly tragic, and accompanied by the narrator's vague philosophical ramblings which served to illuminate little other than the basic theme of "war is bad". Maybe if I saw it again I'd get more out of it - I'd certainly like to, though the sad news was that this will only be available on DVD in a very cut version (half as long.)

I was expecting it to be more surreal and ineffable, and was pleasantly surprised to see (and hear!) the movie switch gears to amazing action battle mode and back to weird sci fi drama as necessary.

big recommend!
 
 
Grady Hendrix
18:39 / 11.12.07
Glad you liked it. There were about 50 people there, which was fine with us Subway guys. Frankly, we were just happy someone else was paying shipping and the theater rental so we could see it on the big screen.

Watching CASSHERN the way god intended was interesting. For one thing, the movie makes NO FUCKING SENSE. There are blast crater sized plot holes all through the final third and the opening third, and middle third, keep giving the impression that there are reams of history on references behind the scenes that you're missing out on. The other hand, it's much better than I remember. The boring parts weren't so boring and the editing and the sound design were both amazing - even the most banal scene wound up looking and feeling spectacular. It's like they just had a pipe running right into your guts and the director and editors are able to pump down hot lava or ice slides at will.

The ending, as above, was a lot more nonsensical from a logical point of view, but it really moved me. Why? I dunno. I can't explain any of it really, but the sound and images combine into one gob-smacking left hook that shattered my jaw like glass. I've seen this trick in a few movies before, but the ending where they show an alternate universe version of the cast acting like normal, happy, loving people rather than murderous bastards made me weep like a little penguin lost and lonely on an ice floe.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
18:54 / 11.12.07
I saw Casshern on the small screen (rental) four or five years ago, and I'm going to have to watch it again after reading this thread.

Because I thought it was a total mess; my overwhelming impression was that it was exactly what would happen if you jacked a 14-year-old up on methamphetamines, gave him $5 million and told him to make a really long Power Rangers episode.

Mind you, everyone above seems to acknowledge that the movie is big and explodey and makes no sense, so maybe there's just a thin line between "I loved it, it was big and explodey and made no sense" and "I hated it, it was big and explodey and made no sense." Could have been the mood I was in...
 
 
Mysterious Transfer Student
19:07 / 11.12.07
Here's our dedicated Casshern topic, which contains a fair range of opinions on the movie, including the one Matt just reiterated and which I am hard pressed to disagree with, despite the fact that I liked the film and did experience emotions when viewing it in the cinema four years ago much like the ones Grady mentions. If my inner hormone-addled adolescent is going to be indulged with a huge pile of nonsensical bleeding-edge emo eye candy, this is almost certainly the movie I'm going to find most fit for purpose.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
16:20 / 12.12.07
Damn it, I hate repeating things I'd said ages ago almost verbatim but with absolutely no memory of having said it in the first place. Cripes.
 
 
Grady Hendrix
18:19 / 12.12.07
I'm trying to figure out why I have such a soft spot for failed fantasy/sci-fi films like FARAWAY SO CLOSE and CASSHERN and such hatred for fantasy/sci-fi films like WINGS OF DESIRE and TRANSFORMERS. I mean, they do seem to contain the same ingredients but there's something so slight and subtly different in the execution that they become totally different beasts in my mind. Maybe it's the smell of ruined ambitions, or smoking, collapsed dreams that I crave?
 
  
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