Ganheddo

I came to this film after a viral tweet expressed how Final Fantasy VII, Armored Core and Metal Gear owed a debt of gratitude to this film's imagery. I can easily imagine an impressionable teen or 20-something seeing this and later creating concept art for any of those game series; the resemblance is sometimes uncanny.

A story about tech scavengers entering the dormant 500-floor megafortress of a Skynet-like rogue AI is an obvious product of its time; one part Stalker, one part The Terminator, and existing in a continuum of otaku "mecha" media & techno-action video games.

The fortress is a chemical plant hellscape; the Death Star but without its austere cleanliness. Tangles of pipes stretch endlessly into the dark horizon strewn with wreckage from a decade-past humans-vs-robots showdown. Nightmarish "bioroids" lurk in the shadows as the scavengers rummage for lost technology.

Gunhed's particular horror revels in Japanese industrialization gone amok with its labyrinthine steel superstructures, putting it on a similar wavelength to "Patlabor: The Movie" and Katsuhiro Otomo's "Akira" and "The Order to Stop Construction". Its sometimes sublime imagery recalls the foggy and colorful sci-fi noir of Ridley Scott films and "Aliens". It could be a cultural touchstone for some, but it's very much a product of its time and wears its influences on its sleeve.

When the rogue AI's apocalyptic plans are revealed, their only hope is to repair the titular "gunhed", a giant, bipedal, transforming tank accompanied by a witty computer personality. Gunhed delivers the goods in terms of miniature-based visual effects. Whether good or bad, it often charms. A scene where the gunhed tank aggressively fords a pool of chemicals while fending off automated defenses is impressive; fire and waves and sparks filling the screen. I would love to see the filming of that battle.

Unfortunately, much of the storytelling is conventionally poor, visual or otherwise. Sometimes it's hard to tell what characters are doing, or what's happening to them. The dialog, with its blend of spoken English and Japanese, is 1980s style-over-substance; charmingly dated and poorly acted. It's only engaging as an artifact of its era, rather than a functionally good movie. If you're looking for cultural artifact to study, then Gunhed is interesting. Otherwise I'd skip it.

Patlabor: The Movie is an extremely similar but significantly better film in almost every respect: depth, writing, visual storytelling, and comprehensible action choreography. Like Gunhed it's about characters who enter a labyrinthine superstructure full of mecha gone amok in order to avert a Japanese industrial robo-pocalypse. Proving my point about the zeitgeist, it released at nearly the same time as Gunhed.

Despite the director of this movie callled himself the infamous nickname Allan Smithee and despite the setting is dark, is very entertaining Japanese 80s cyberpunk action movie style of James Cameroon at that time.

After the big war with humans against machinese on an island, old computer scrap is valuable as gold. A group of scrap hunters (with names that begins with B) discover the old island and land to find some scrap metal. But after they discover two kids and one female ranger and the good machine Gunhed. When the other machines come alive they have to work together to survive.

Despite its mostly dark scenes, it's very exciting and entertaining, the acting is pretty good, and the foreign actors in this movie is also pretty good. And if you have seen terminator 1 and 2 this one is a good treat.

Ganheddo was produced by the same Japanese studio which brought us Godzilla, and it shows... but in a good way. Where many, higher-budgeted films of the time were moving to computer-generated effects, Toho stuck with scale models and stop-animation, giving this movie a gritty look not often found in films of similar provenance.

Though the plot is difficult to keep up with at times, it is still enjoyable, made especially the more so by the character of Seven. This movie will be a godsend for fans of the Mechwarrior/vertical tank type stories. The plot revolves around a group of scavengers who happen across a defunct lair controlled by machines, cyborgs, and their master, a central computer. The scavengers are after a rare power source which fuels the complex. Having detected their presence, the computer counts down to self destruct. Matters are complicated when one of the crew becomes incorporated into the machine's consciousness.

Good cinematography, decent acting, and a fantastic story all contribute to this film's warrants. It's too bad that CGI has taken the forefront -- I think modern filmmakers could learn a lesson from this one.

I saw GANHEDDO (aka GUNHED) back in 1989 when it opened in Okinawa City, Okinawa. I had seen a write-up in NEWTYPE magazine and I just had to see this "giant robot" movie. Some buddies and I went on a quest to find it, and I was thrilled that we made the effort. I've seen the Japanese version of GANHEDDO numerous times, and I have to admit that I still don't understand the logic of Khyron's scheme to take over the world. I don't get why Seven's mouth glows, or why she needs to stand over the vial of Texmexium when the clock runs out. But that's okay. GANHEDDO satisfied my urge to see a kick-butt big robot movie. That half the dialogue was in English with Japanese "side-titles" was a bonus.

It's not a perfect movie by any means. And the horrendous dub job done for ADV's American video release just makes it worse. (For example: in the video, Brooklyn mutters "G** d*** f** you" to Sgt. Nim. In the original, he mutters silently. Was the nonsensical cursing necessary?) Still, the miniatures are impressive and Brenda Bakke's futuristic Lauren Bacall impression is enjoyable. My advice: seek out the LD or original Japanese DVD, and avoid any of ADV's versions.

This film is abysmal.

Maybe it's lost something in the translation. Perhaps it's just plain rubbish.

I bought this video because I thought it was Manga Anime. Unfortunately it's the most unbelievably poorly acted euro-nippon trash I've ever seen. It's actually so bad I've had to watch it about four times to try and work out what the plot is. I still don't think it has one.

Why anybody would seriously want to watch this is beyond me.