Kyûtî Hanî

I saw this film at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, right after Blueberry. Holy smokes, this movie is totally awesome!!! Why can't north Americans make cool movies like this? It's super happy and action-packed, and it even makes fun of itself = it's perfect!!! For this vein of movies, Cutie Honey is the best I've ever seen!!!

If you have a vague idea what this movie is about, you'll be blown away by the extremes and humour presented on the screen. It's not serious. But a most excellent treat indeed!

All the acting is superficial, there's a constant(but not tumultuous) music track throughout, all the photography is extreme and the story itself is completely retarded. A lot of the humor comes from making fun of stupid little "cutesy" movies --> also, the sexism is exaggerated too: Cutie Honey behaves in a ... "special" way: always innocently making sexy poses wearing only underwear, etc... All the action sequences are completely over the top, super loud, and mixed with cartoons as well.

For what it is, it's unbeatable.

Let's put it clear from the beginning, the film is an exercise in style, and the style is anime. If you like anime, this is THE FILM you'd love to see, characters, timing, acting, dialog, cameras, lights, sound...An fan's dream, a film made by a man who loves anime for all the people who love anime. When I found that Anno, the man who made Neon Genesis Evangelion, was in this project, I thought it would be great. When I finally saw it, I found it was better, I kept a smile all time long. If you don't like it, well, try something else. If you don't like blues, you'd protest about repetitive riffs and metrics, long guitar solos and so on. Each kind of art has its codes, and if you share them you understand and appreciate it. For me, this is a masterpiece of live action anime.

I have to go with the other posters. This was the most amazing and revolutionary action-adventure I have seen since "Road Warrior" way back when! Yes, maybe I sound like a nut after saying that, but the energy from the Fantasia Festival debut of this movie has convinced that I am not insane after all. "Cutie Honey" (the most unlikely action-film title I ever heard or could imagine) deserves to go down in film history as one of the greatest action-adventures of all time. For instance it's 10X better than the Lethal Weapon series, and Quentin Tarantino only wishes he had the talent to create a film like this (rather than steal it).

Then again, since "Hollywood" denigrates films like this? I am not sure what its fate will be. But if it got a US release it could revolutionize the US film industry like nothing people have seen. In the meantime I only hope anyone reading this has a chance to see this amazing film.

It's that F'N good.,

Taking its cue from similar movies like 'Charlie's Angels' and 'Austin Powers', Anno Hideaki's 'Cutie Honey' is a mixed bag of zany humor, outlandish action, campy acting and psychedelic animation. Based on the cult anime and manga series by iconic Japanese Manga writer Nagai Go, the movie begins with a crowd-pleasing opening sequence that really captures the essence and feel of the 1973 anime cartoon. However, the rest of the movie fails to match up with the awesome first fifteen minutes of the feature.

Sato Eriko is certainly pleasing to the eyes and is absolutely picture perfect as Kisaragi Honey/Cutie Honey, however her constant childlike innocence and carefree attitude becomes somewhat grating during the course of the film. Ichikawa Mikako is also good as Aki Natsuko but unfortunately she too is hampered by the limitations of her character's simplistic and cartoonish characterization.

The action is surprisingly top notch and the so-called 'Honey-mation' (live action footage mixed in with cartoon animation) sequences are really inventive and recalls the flawed movie 'Tank Girl' in some instances.

The movie really bogs down towards the middle with a series of candid scenes of Sato Eriko in a variety of disguises. It was totally unnecessary and was probably done to fulfill the 'Cosplay' (Costume Play) fetishes and fantasies of its target audience.

The movie really gets weird and offbeat when Oikawa Mitsuhiro as Black Claw breaks out in a song and dance number towards the end of the movie for no apparent reason. Perhaps this might have been appropriate in a spoof movie like 'Team America: World Police' but seems totally out-of-place here. In fact Koda Kumi's cameo earlier in film screamed out blatant 'product placement' as she also sings most of the songs for the film soundtrack.

The ending was the biggest disappoint. As with Anno's 'Evangelion' finale, the promise of an exciting, slam-bang finale are quickly dashed and instead we are treated to metaphysical ramblings and pretentious lecturing about the 'meaning of love' and how 'Sister Jill' should embrace love and evolve to the next level.

Being a fan of the 1973 anime series, I really wanted to like 'Cutie Honey' more. It's not a bad film and is at times quite enjoyable. However, I just wish that the movie followed through with the promising beginning opening few minutes and delivered something a bit more rousing and original.

And I agree with the other reviewer, i think James totally missed the point! The idea as far as I can tell was to make a live action anime, it was a parody not a serious movie. The way the characters are posed, in particular the journalist, and one scene where a character has a megaphone covering her mouth was a nod to the way animation is shot-ie exaggerated poses, and objects over mouths to save on animation costs.It was supposed to be a large poke of fun at the silliness of magic girl anime series and anime standards, like a live action version of excel saga! I enjoyed it greatly, and laughed the whole way through, i suppose if you have seen the original series its difficult not to get precious about it. But for someone who has watched a lot of anime, it was enjoyable for all the references to other series and the way a master of the medium can poke fun at his own creations.The performances were good and in a way perfectly studied, they all acted like anime characters, which was the point, Anno was having a dig at how simplistic a lot of characters in anime are and in particular female characters. I agree the end with Sister Jill was a bit sappy but again i thought he was trying to make a point about soppy endings to anime series, as well as obviously trying to fill his need to have some comment on human nature in all his productions! All in all a highly enjoyable film!