Esupai

Just watched this movie for the first time and it was OK. It was in Japanese with English subtitles which, in my opinion, is the only way to watch foreign live-action movies. To explain the missing scenes in the English dub, I'll give a more accurate account. Yoshio is bound to a chair while a mesmerised Maria is dancing in a very sexy outfit and one of the bad guys comes to her and they start to kiss, but Yoshio gets enraged by this and rips out his tongue. Which is why the bad guy is wearing a mask. This action also breaks Maria out of her trance. Later you see a flashback scene where Maria is remembering and her shirt gets ripped open in the flashback. Seems unecessary and stuck in the movie just to have a topless scene. She looked great in the sexy outfit and we didn't reallty need this.

The movie, as you might suspect, has some unbelievable scenes and it really feels these were not needed to be shown in this way. The first scene in the movie where the bad guy shoots 4 people on a moving train when he had limited mobility sitting in a car. Also, ESP and Telekinesis are one thing(s), but they went as far as teleportation and that was just a conveinient plot device that could have been avoided.

On the positive side, the movie has a James Bond feel and you do have some globe trotting and an over-the-top performance by your head bad guy. There is also some surprising violence. A gun that looks like it blows people to pieces when you see it happens but then in the aftermath, they are just bloody with normal gunshot wounds.

This film is interesting in that it covers some of the same territory as Scanners (psycho-kinetic empowered mutants who are outcasts in human society) as well as containing a touch of Star Wars and the Force (Kenobi-like ESP guru) before either of those movies were made. At times the dialogue is laughable, at other times it is rather profound (especially in the last speech by the villain). Goofy too (watch for the black heavy who dresses like Shaft but wears a white surgical mask that is never explained--at least in the dubbed version). Or the guy trapped in the car who uses his gun to shoot at the door lock--not the window--to escape.

Cheetah the german shepherd (and wonder dog) steals the show.

This makes no sense in ways few movies have ever not made sense. Words fail me here. I have only some idea of how I feel about ESPY, and have precisely no idea what to make of ESPY as far as plot or, like, anything of substance is concerned.

What can be said? Well, there are psychics, there are conspiracies, there are assassinations, there is telekinesis, there is a dog sidekick (did he talk at one point, early on? Or did I hallucinate that?), there is sleaze, there is espionage, and there is political intrigue. Actually, there might not be some of those things, and there might be some other things I've already forgotten about, like some half-remembered fever dream brought on by food poisoning, or maybe there are things I never picked up on to begin with.

If you think you've seen it all, here's another movie to remind you that no, you haven't, and you never will, no matter how many movies you cross off your watchlist. That can be saddening or wonderful, depending on your outlook on life, and your emotional frame of mind when the thought crosses it, the mind.

What is ESPY? It's ESPY, and that's both enough and not nearly enough. Just watch it and embrace what you can, or don't embrace anything, and be impressed by the lack of embracing. It's a movie you get stuck in, all the while it also slips off and away from you, like you're water and it's oil. Again, it's ESPY. And I'm so very afraid.