Shin Ultraman

1. A reimagining of Ultraman and the 37th film in the Ultraman franchise. The second live-action installment in Hideaki Anno's Shin Japan Heroes Universe. An epic tokusatsu entry with brilliant and realistic practical and visual effects combined with outstanding battle choreography. Well written dialogues with humour and political awareness regarding Japan's weak government bureaucracy and United States' over dominance in Japan's internal affairs.

2. A reimagining of Ultraman and the 37th film in the Ultraman franchise. The second live-action installment in Hideaki Anno's Shin Japan Heroes Universe. An epic tokusatsu entry with brilliant and realistic practical and visual effects combined with outstanding battle choreography. Well written dialogues with humour and political awareness regarding Japan's weak government bureaucracy and United States' over dominance in Japan's internal affairs.

I was very excited for Shin Ultraman, and jumped at the chance to see it as part of a film festival. I'd given up on expecting it to get a cinema release in Australia, so this seemed like the only chance to see it on the big screen. It was at a cinema that always shows movies in their original language (even when they screen old Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki movies), so it was disappointing that they had a dubbed version. I've heard worse dubs - mostly from older movies, usually in the martial arts genres - but even if it wasn't a terrible dub, it still ruined most of the humor. You can understand certain lines and moments as comedic, but without them being in their original language, it's not genuinely funny; more just, "Oh, I assume that's funny."

Dub aside, I still think I would've been slightly disappointed with this even if I'd watched it the way it was intended. It's oddly paced, and features action that progressively gets less exciting as the film goes on. There are certain fun sequences that balance being silly and cool well, but I felt the action generally ran out of steam after about the first hour or so. And then it kept feeling like it was building to a climax, only for the scene not to be the climax, and then on and on until it eventually ended.

The character stuff is all acceptable, and having the human storyline intersect with the giant monster stuff by having a man who can transform into Ultraman is a nice way to bridge what often feels like separate parts of the same kaiju movie. It feels like Shin Godzilla in parts, when it comes to the human stuff, but never feels quite as cutting or clever as that film was, with its satirical elements and the way it unapologetically mocked bureaucracy.

For some fun action and spectacle, I think it would've been a decent watch if it had been in Japanese with subs. The dubbed version I'd give lower than a 6/10, but I won't knock the film overall for that; I'm trying to imagine how I'd feel if the version I'd watched had been the proper one. And I do ultimately think I still would've felt disappointed by the final half-hour or so of this, the pacing, and the familiarness of many of its sci-fi concepts, even if there is still a bit of fun to be had within its two-hour runtime.

Shin Ultraman, the second entry in the Shin tokusatsu series, is an entertaining retro throwback to old practical effects kaiju films. Its special effects, shrewdly combining retro scale-model special effects and CGI, has real weight and it brilliantly creates a look of its own. However, Shinji Higuchi's direction is too matter-of-fact for its own good, rendering the film cold when there's no battles happening.

In a reimagining of the Ultraman story, giant unidentified lifeforms known as "S-Class species" begin to emerge on Earth. The Japanese government established the SSSP, the S-Class Species Suppression Protocol, to eliminate all threats.

A mysterious alien entity, dubbed Ultraman, appears to save humanity from the giant monsters.

Shinji Higuchi's last film Shin Godzilla, a satire about government bureaucracy disguised beneath a kaiju movie, was a head scratcher that played better in premise than in execution. The central gag of government staff workers endlessly running into offices drowning in the bureaucratic process, ran dry after twenty minutes.

For Shin Ultraman, writer-director Shinji Higuchi tones down that satirical voice. There's no satirical target here and thus there's less sprinting into offices but the human characters remain cardboard cut-out caricatures.

When there's no monster fight happening, the scenes are just the SSSP staff explaining what needs to be done in the most straight-faced manner with zero subtext, as if they were reading a Wikipedia summary out loud. There's no sense of who these characters are beyond their job description.

Hidetoshi Nikijima, the star of the Oscar-nominated Drive My Car, sadly has no character to play or given any life to breathe into the narrative as the head of the SSSP. With its star-studded Japanese cast, it is just a kaiju-sized opportunity wasted.

It's an odd narrative style that Shin Higuchi has chosen. The film is either complete showing or complete telling. There's no hiding exposition under natural-sounding conversational dialogue.

I fundamentally don't understand why the film is so deliberately distant and allergic to human emotions. Imagine if an alien remade Ultraman and only focused on the battles and just wanted to rush through the talky scenes. Shinji Higuchi is not an alien, but just choosing to be one for some reason.

What won me over about Shin Ultraman was the special effects, an intriguing combination of old school and modern CGI. Together with the film's retro look, it achieves a unique look of its own, especially in its kaiju battle sequences.

I have fond childhood memories of watching Ultraman and Japanese kaiju TV shows. The visual of two costumed actors fighting in a miniaturized city always looked convincing. When computer effects took over in mainstream films in the 2000s, miniatures got left behind. The weight of things was gone. I wondered why so few filmmakers hadn't combined miniatures with CGI.

In Shin Ultraman, that combination of old and new special effects is used to great effect. It retained the weight of things. Many times, my eyes couldn't distinguish whether it was a scale model or CG-it always seems in-between the two. My eyes just believed it and it viscerally transported me back to seeing Ultraman on TV when I was ten, which was amazing.

Sure, Ultraman's beam looks fake in that retro way. However, when Ultraman and the kaiju wrestle and crash into the miniature buildings, there's real weight. When Ultraman flies, it looks like a real man being pulled up into the air. When things explode, it looks like a real bomb went off.

Hopefully, movie audiences who are used to seeing Hollywood CGI blockbusters can keep an open mind and not dismiss this artistry as "retro for retro's sake". I'm glad there are filmmakers keeping miniatures alive.

Overall, I feel half and half about Shin Ultraman. It's really fun in a kitschy retro kind of way. But by the third act, I was yearning for more subtext and something deeper from the script other than what the characters plan to do next. That depth never came and it left me cold when the credits rolled.

I wouldn't sit through Shin Ultraman again in its entirety, but I'd happily watch the fights again or any special features behind the filming of the miniatures.

What a movie!! Shin ultraman is a love letter for a ultraman fans and even if you are not a fan, This movie is just amazing and treat to watch!! Great CGI, nostalgic evil Characters and most importantly the direction!! Everything was just amazing and really new to watch!! Worth giving a try for not a fan and ofcourse for the fans.. this is a must watch for you guys!! And yes! Nagasawa masami is a MVP!!!

5 episodes crammed into almost 2 hour of duration! For a non-fan and first timer (meaning first time watching the original ultraman or it's modern reincarnation) like me, it's quiet annoying and confusing since it doesn't give us much time to know, root, or sympathize with any of the characters. But for the fans of the original series (the 60's version), it's quiet probably gonna be a nostalgia trip with all the namedrops, the designs, and even the fight choreography that pay homage to the original source material. Love the fact that the Anno made sense some of the elements from the original series to appeal to the updated modern science and technology while making sure the movie doesn't lose its fantasy status. It's always a win to a science enthusiast like me everytime a filmmaker gets the science right or at least sounds plausible to audiences with different levels of science comprehension even though it's beyond applicable in real life.

7.5/10.