Sky High

As with many of Ryuhei Kitamura's film, Sky High displays plenty of great ideas (a serial killer ripping people's hearts out, the gates of Rage, where murdered people go and are given three choice - heaven, earth, or hell), an genre bending story (sword play, horror, sci-fi, love story, serial killer) and plenty of visual style. However, Sky High also fall foul of Ryuhei Kitamura's usual faults. For this type of film, and the way it is shot, it is just too long, running at over two hours. Kitamura tries to give the story depth and meaning (failing most the time), when it should be a great popcorn flick with less depth. Take his two major success - Versus and Azumi. Here there is very little plot, just great action. Alive, another of Kitamura's films, which is very similarly themed to Sky High, also suffers these faults. Given the right script, Kitamura will make a genuinely great film (he almost did it with Versus), but until then, he need someone to come and cut his film down.

I'm a big fan of Kitamura Ryuhei and he ain't disappointing anyone with this one either, all though this one probably ain't my favorite by him. What you get here is as usual an original plot who at first, reading on IMDb, seemed a bit difficult but as soon as the movie went on it weren't hard to keep up with the plot development. I saw someone who really ranted about this piece, but I guess it was another Hollywood fan because Kitamura is, as always, bending the borders a bit and I do understand if the inveterately Hollywood fans will find this "controversial", by judging the camera work, plot, scenes e.t.c. The scenery in "Sky High" is lovely! What I perhaps lacked here was the more "diffuse" plot development, it was a bit too straight for me (yet good but I wanted more). It's a 7/10 and any Kitamura fan should see this!

I like Ryuhei Kitamura movies. He makes a decent effort trying to be cool and I really appreciate it. There is something in his vision, in his artistic decisions, in his whole approach to cinema as art, that makes him ... I don't know ... more then just a film creator. No wonder he is already a cult phenomenon.

"Sky High" is a Ryuhei Kitamura film, alright. The cinematography is clean and aesthetic, art design is pretty impressive, and kind of alienated, the swords are long and fast, the blood is red and hot, and the Japanese women are beautiful and dangerous as hell. (Check out Kimika Yoshino as the White Witch, mmmm... sweet).

And the story, well, its really boring, stupid, and just not interesting enough.

Some supernatural and magical reality, some lame characters with immature behavior, some tedious fights that could make you fall asleep and some other totally unexciting piles of crap. So if you really want to see this film, if you feeling that you don't want to miss one of Ryuhei Kitamura experiences, watch it, but don't expect for masterpiece.

Don't bother yourself with this slow, melodramatic and infantile movie, with bad directing, really bad acting, awfully bad dialogs and with surprisingly bad ending.

** P.S: "Kung Fu Hustle" by Stephen Chow, is my favorite choice anyway.

The Media Blasters DVD contains both the theatrical version and a 10 minute longer Director's Cut. For purposes of this review, I'll be looking at the longer cut. Kanzaki is a detective who's working on a case involving woman having their hearts cut out. On his wedding day he finds Mina, his fiancé, has been killed the same way. At the Gates of Heaven she is faced with a choice: go to heaven and await reincarnation, become a ghost to walk the Earth forever, or kill someone who wronged her, but go to hell for eternity. She must find a way to stop Kanzaki from killing her murderer so he doesn't fry in hell. This cut differs from the Theatrical one as there's much more dialog (which doesn't really flesh out the movie that much more) and the ending fight scene seems a tad longer. This movie seemed OK, good in the beginning, but the longer it goes the more muddled it became. I didn't enjoy it as much as the Director's previous work.

My Grade: C+

Media Blasters 2-DVD set Extras: disk 1) 122 minute Theatrical version; Commentary with Ryumei Kitamura and the cast Disk 2) 132 Minute Director's Cut; 5 TV spots (no sub-titles); Stills Gallery; a 23 minute Making of; 2 Theatrical Trailers (no sub-titles); and Trailers for "Deadly Outlaw Rekka", "One Missed Call", "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People", "the Mysterians", and a 5 and a half minute promo for "Death Trance"

This film had a low budget but a lot of meaning. It looked like something you would see on TV, but in full you can really tell it is a movie. The film shows an interesting version of heaven and hell. The pearly gates are not really pearly either. They are the Gates Of Rage and you have three choices. Be reborn, curse someone until they die or wander around like a ghost all your life. Kind of has the heaven effect with some reincarnation added. You would expect the special effects to be high, but all you get are some interesting sparks added to some cool sword fighting scenes. The cast is interesting. There are only really about four characters worth mentioning although all the side ones do have personalities. Yumiko Shaku does an OK job and has a cool fight scene, but that is about it. Shosuke Tanihara is a detective trying to avenge his dead girlfriend played by Yumiko. He shows the most emotion in the film. Then the "bad guy" is played by Takao Osawa which was probably my favorite performance in the film. Takao had an evil sidekick played by Kanae Uotani. She had some of the best fight scenes. She really had the look for her character also. This film is like a fantasy and a horror piece put into one. You have death and you have magic. The story was interesting, but was missing pieces. Overall, it was fun to watch though.