Sky High (2003)

When a police detective investigating a string of grisly murders discovers Mina, his fiancée is the latest victim, he embarks on a quest for revenge. But he discovers that he’s up against supernatural forces that threaten to unleash the ultimate evil on the world and the only one who can stop it is the spirit of Mina who awaits her fate at the Gate of Rage.

Ryuhei Kitamura, the popular Japanese director of action cult hits Versus and Azumi, ups the ante with Sky High, a hard-to-define movie that spawned a TV series in Japan. It’s his third and arguably most ambitious manga-to-movie adaptation and the second from manga creator Tsutomu Takahashi after Alive. Kitamura’s trademark visual style and flair for the fantastic is intact, although the martial arts action takes a backwards step and the plot may be too high-concept for its own good.

If nothing else, Sky High is a visual treat with a lot of promise. Kitamura kicks things off with a disturbing thriller vibe. Women are having their hearts ripped out by a serial killer and Detective Kudo (Takao Osawa) is on the case. But almost immediately, the world turns upside down when on his wedding day, Kudo’s fiancée Mina (Yumiko Shaku, Princess Blade) makes a bloody entrance as victim number four. An enraged Kudo vows to kill the murderer himself and begins his own investigation with the aid of an autopsy specialist and a photographer with a gift for seeing supernatural phenomena. Mina, or rather her spirit, arrives at the Gate of Rage which is guarded by a sword-wielding woman with the title of Izuko. There, she must decide her own fate to either reincarnate, haunt the living world or find and curse the one responsible for her death face an eternity in hell. Left with a little time to decide, she follows Kudo around as he draws closer to the killer. As the killer and his intent becomes clearer, Kudo and Mina both attempt to save the next intended victim and eventually to save the world from actions that would open the Gate of Rage and turn the living world into hell.

Sky High starts out really strong by jerking the audience around and refusing to play by convention. This is Japanese filmmaking at its best, visually compelling, unflinching and semi-surreal. But by the half way point, Kitamura leaves few new surprises and settles into a Ghost meets The Matrix movie that starts to unravel thanks to a plethora of plot holes and silly swordplay. Yes, silly swordplay.

Kitamura’s Versus was loaded with swordplay that could have used tighter editing, but was fairly entertaining because of the energy the actors maintained and the knowledge that it had been put together on a shoestring budget. Kitamura put decent swordplay in a couple of other films, the best being Azumi, which had epic action that was uniformly polished, bloody and exciting. This indicated an enticing evolution where Kitamura seemed to be refining the action scenes in his movies and putting his increasing budgets to good use. While Sky High looks just as polished in most regards, it doesn’t take a Yuen Wo-ping or a Nick Powell to see that the sword fights are poorly conceived and executed. For starters, it all feels forced, as if swordplay really doesn’t belong in the movie at all. If not for this action, the film would be more of a psychological fantasy/thriller like The Cell or The Devil’s Advocate. But for some reason, the fate of the world must rest with a series of sword duels in life and in death. In fact, the two fully merge when one brief sword fight takes place between the living armed with an enchanted sword and a spirit. This, of course, could be quite forgivable had the fights been better.

Most of the action is performed by the film’s large female contingent, all of whom are quite attractive, but not action stars by trade. Yumiko Shaku probably has the most experience after having her numerous sword fights choreographed by Donnie Yen for Princess Blade. Regardless, there is just too much generic sword clinking, posturing and flowing hair blown by off-camera fans and not enough impressive moves or justification. A scene where two attackers wade into a gauntlet of fighting monks as drum and bass beats sound off is completely off the wall with blond-haired monks bouncing around with nunchachu. It’s embarrassingly bad. On this and other occasions the action threatens to become an unintentional parody of itself. Actually, there is a similar problem with the much lower-budgeted Versus. The end fights in both films are lengthy, yet lack the creativity to justify the amount of screen time they fill.

The story in Sky High suffers from its own problems. The premise and general execution are good, yet it seems that Kitamura may have tried to take on too much conceptually. There are too many thin stretches of the imagination put in as a matter of convenience, rather than need or plausibility such as when a critical action involves having a real-world gun brought into the afterlife along with its bearer. The problem here is that Kitamura is taking this more mainstream story serious, unlike some of his earlier work which clearly had irreverent undertones to match the extreme and implausible nature of the action.

In light of these drawbacks, it is somewhat amazing to realize how engaging Sky High remains to be. With all of Kitamura’s faults come his strengths that manage to shine through once again, primarily in visuals and energy. Creative use of lighting, colors and camera work along with a wide range of interesting sets ensures that there is always something worth looking at. The film is a tad overlong, yet forward momentum is maintained and at least for the first half, it’s uncertain where the story will go. And if you can overlook the many plot holes and cartoony action, it’s not hard to get caught up in the central drama of lovers separated by death and willing to do anything to be reunited.