TheRetroCritic

Based on the 70's anime series, Casshern was a 2004 live-action film which looked very promising yet it left me feeling somewhat conflicted leaving the cinema after watching it: parts of it pissed me right off but other parts were all kinds of awesome. So how does Casshern fare now, after a re-watch? Much better, actually. The flaws I'd picked up on the first time watching it are still there and they are still distracting but the stuff that works in the film does very much outweigh them. If you're not familiar with the film's plot, it involves a Dr Frankenstein-style scientist (Akira Terao) who finds a way to regenerate dead tissue through what he calls Neo-Cells. During a war, a lightning bolt mysteriously hits his lab and, as a result, a new race of people is born. At the same time, his son Tetsuya (Yusuke Iseya) is killed in the war and he brings him back as some kind of superhero who ends up calling himself Casshern. The new "monsters", Neo-Sap

So I just re-watched Akira . Luckily, it wasn't quite like this :P

Clearly THIS should have been the whole show!

Surprised this exists? I was too. This independent short film based on the popular manga and anime series Sailor Moon was made by DGS Studios and stars Avery Danielle in the title role. I won't review it since it's a fan film but check it out. You can find more stuff on their Youtube channel and Tumblr .

The first attempt at a Dragonball movie was always going to be a disappointment, especially in the hands of a Hollywood studio. Unless they were willing to spend an Avatar -style budget on a movie adaptation of the classic manga/anime series, the project was basically doomed to fail from the start. And so we waited years and years for... Dragonball Evolution . Taking the basic Goku-centric plot of Dragonball and taking out of it key elements and dozens of iconic characters, Dragonball Evolution was about as lazy and generic of an adaptation as you could have possibly expected. Justin Chatwin, known previously for his part as Tom Cruise's rebellious son in War Of The Worlds , plays Goku and, although he's likeable enough, he's just not given anything tangible to work with and that ends up affecting his performance quite a bit. Yes, he's strong-willed and always hungry but he's pretty skinny, his haircut's nowhere near what it should look like and he's

Based on the anime series (and the manga) also known as Samurai X , Rurouni Kenshin is the new Japanese live-action adaptation starring Takeru Sato as the titular former killer with a guilty conscience. The film follows Himura Kenshin, an ex-assassin who participated in the Bakumatsu war and has since given up his killing ways, and his name (Battosai), instead going around offering help to anyone that needs it. His sword has a reversed blade and he's not looking for a fight: he's perfectly happy just being a wanderer. Unfortunately, some guy is going around calling himself Battosai and killing policemen in his name for some weird-looking, cruel businessman with a pet rabbit. No, I'm not making that up. And thus, trouble soon finds Kenshin and, whether he wanted to deal with it or not, he finds that he kinda has to. He meets a girl called Kamiya, who owns a small dojo, and it's when that dojo gets ransacked by thugs, that he starts intervening. Kamiya's big thi

Based on the classic manga (and the anime series) of the same name, City Hunter was a Hong Kong comedy starring Jackie Chan. Made in 1993, it tried to stay true to the spirit of the manga while being very much a Chan comedy. The result was a very, very silly flick which certainly felt like a Jackie Chan film but not so much like a City Hunter film. For one thing, Chan looks nothing like the character and, as good as he is in this, it's impossible to picture him as the young, tall, broad-shouldered hunk Ryo Saeba's meant to be so you just have to accept him as Jackie Chan. The plot also takes liberties to say the least, despite its very simplistic good guys vs bad guys storyline. Whereas the anime had very much a dark, film noir tone with its moody visuals and cool soundtrack, this City Hunter looks very 90's and goes for purely generic slapstick action comedy antics, nothing special. I mean, as a cartoonish comedy, it's a fun film, don't get me wrong. I do lik

A live-action Kiki's Delivery Service movie?! For real? Yup. Apparently it's happening and it should be out next year! It'll be directed by Takashi Shimizu, known for horror film  Ju-On: The Grudge (and its lesser sequels), and will star Fuka Koshiba as the titular witch. The film will be based on the novel and will essentially re-tell the story told in Studio Ghibli's classic animated feature. There's a teaser trailer (see below) but it shows nothing so I shall keep y'all updated should anymore news about the production arise! Any thoughts on why this movie's being made? Are you looking forward to it? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @TheRetroCritic ;)