By | Published March 20, 2009

GOEMON

CASSHERN creator Kazuaki Kiriya is back with a new effects-filled fantasy and martial arts actioner. GOEMON (official site) stars Yosuke Eguchi as legendary ninja bandit “Ishikawa Goemon,” as he battles his way through a fantasy setting in Japan’s Sengoku era.

Admittedly, I look at the latest trailer for this movie and my eyes glaze over in general disinterest. Inconsistent, cluttered art direction and too much artificial craziness going on for me but I’m sure it will appeal to folks who like their action fast, over the top and very busy. There does appear to be some decent swordplay and fantasy martial arts that may be worth investigating. It reminds me of some of those “hack and slash” action video games from Japan like the DEVIL MAY CRY series or NINJA GAIDEN where players cut their way through waves of enemies while performing lightning-fast power moves with progressively more outlandish settings and opponents.

If there is a plot in there besides “guy fights” I don’t see it. One of the common criticisms of CASSHERN was that while it looked good, it had a messy, underdeveloped plot. Director Kazuaki Kiriya comes from the world of music videos so it’s not surprising that he seems to favor visuals and style over character development and storytelling. The cast looks good though with some veterans mixed in there with joint credits that include ARAGAMI, SAMURAI COMMANDO MISSION 1549 and K-20: LEGEND OF THE MASK.

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  • Manny77

    They should have chose on e or the other, Anime or Fantasy, the fights in this trailer look like they’re straight from a Anime movie. Apart from Karate and Samurai movies, this has been Japan cinema problem, when it comes to action or fantasy they can seen to brake away from the anime gender, we the martial arts fans like to see good physical display of the art in movies, Japan makes some good fantasy movies but as far as solid martial arts movie they rarely do.

  • 107

    Video Game movies probably would have better luck if they looked like this – really seems mindless – more eye candy than substance….

  • Vahagn

    Mannnnnnnnn, this kind of great movies never get to europe, and even if they get here, no one knows about it, here they just know about the stupid american sex movies, i feel sorry man, so sorry

  • HVC

    Casshern’s big problem was that it had a script and that the Japanese seem to think if they drag out dialogue long enough it will make their characters more relevant or something. If this movie excises dialogue for action, it will be a lot better. It’s what Kiria does best. I’d much rather watching a compelling, visually engrossing music video for an hour or so, than suffer the soul crushing sound of j-pop “actors” attempting to deliver their lines. That said, this looks pretty neat.

  • nicaraguan23

    This looks good. But after watching the Casshern trailer I thought it would be the awesome the visuals were but the movie was actually boring. I hope this movie is different. Will see it regardless.