Alive

"Alive" is a dark dystopian science-fiction drama that convinces with some philosophic thoughts and some social criticism. There are a couple of intriguing mysteries surrounding the movie that keep a certain level of tension. This Japanese flick though lives especially from its dark and twisted dystopian atmosphere and a good graphic work. The acting performances of the two male prisoners and the strange witch are great enough to carry the movie on and have a classic and theatrical approach reminding me of Sartre's "No Exit".

Towards the end, the movie sadly shifts into a rather ordinary fantasy flick with some boring action scenes. I also feel that one could have developed some characters a little bit more and gone more into some details. While there are many interesting aspects, the movie doesn't go as it could have. As soon as the mysteries are solved or left untouched, the story shifts into emptiness and the whole structures gets somewhat overlong, pointless and even emotionless. Even the acting gets less addicting and one loses interest concerning the different characters. The dramatic turn of events in the ending can't save much anymore and leaves the viewers more or less untouched because the flick lost too much credit in its last third.

In the end, the movie is a mixed package with two third of the running time that is rather addicting, diversified and filled with tension, mystery and atmosphere while the last third is less intense and lacks of originality. This is a fairly interesting movie to rent or watch once but only of an average quality compared to many other contemporary Japanese movies and I wouldn't suggest you a blind purchase of this flick. After all, my rating is seven out of ten but I'm maybe still a little bit generous, so don't expect an outstanding movie in here but just some good entertainment with a few enjoyable qualities.

ALIVE is a big letdown for fans of Kitamura's VERSUS. It's not a big surprise Kitamura chose this movie as his sophomore effort coming off the massive success of the hyper kinetic VERSUS. The result, unfortunately, is a terribly dull and drab movie that expends way too much energy on a silly story and even sillier fights. The first half is mostly nothing happening, with the film's first 40-minutes completely superfluous, as it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. What amounts to "tension" is one nice guy (who was condemned, but is still pretty nice) and a not-so-nice guy (who was also condemned, and deservedly so) trying to outdo each other when it comes to weak acting. The nice guy just mopes a lot and the mean guy just shouts and acts crazy. Amateur hour, anyone?

It doesn't help that Kitamura shows his familiarity with American films by, basically, reusing up all the action sequences that he liked from those films in this one. THE MATRIX special effects was used, as well as James Cameron's ALIENS sequence where characters run around screaming into each other's helmet/vid contraption as they're attacked. (For "elite soldiers", these guys "lost it" pretty darn quick!) We also get "psychic powers" very, VERY similar to Proyas' DARK CITY.

Not that ALIVE is completely bad. It's just...mostly dumb and bad.

5 out of 10

I've seen most of Ryuhei Kitamura's work and I've come to the conclusion that he has a knack for action. Scenes are kinetic and fast often combining elements of martial arts, gun fights and samurai fights with camera work that effectively captures the on screen carnage. With "Versus" and "Aragami" Kitamura demonstrated that creativity and showed that he his more than capable of working with a low budget. So what happened in "Alive" ? To be more blunt, the answer would be - nothing. Nothing happened in "Alive" it was a two hours plus movie with little to no action and little to no characters and plot.

Adapted from a comic book by Tsutomu Takahashi "Alive" is an examination of the life of one Tenshu Yashiro (played by Hideo Sasaki) a death row convict who survives his execution. He is then given a choice of either to repeat the execution or to subject himself in a bizarre series of experiments. He chooses the latter and soon after that is placed in a room along with a rapist and later with a girl infected with a strange parasite that in exchange for it's host's humanity grants supernatural powers. Naturaly at some point that parasite moves into Yashiro, the bad thing is that doesn't happen very soon.

Similar to "Aragami", "Alive" sets it's first half in establishing the basic exposition. Characters are introduced, their motivations are set and their relations between each other are uncovered. The whole thing even takes place in just one set. The first major problem of that comparison is that while "Aragami" was just a 70 minute movie, "Alive" drags on for more than two hours thus making the first part over one hour long. That length could have been justified had the characters been made a bit more interesting but alas that is not the case. Dialogue is dry, monotonous, delivered without any sense of emotion or depth, characters themselves aren't much interesting. There were some small attempts at making "Alive" a bit more moral ambiguous but in the end it all came down to the classic : evil government people against, super-powered protagonist, whom yes you guessed it, saves the girl in the end. Like I previously said the entire film practically takes place at just one set, and after two hours that does get boring, even worse the set design itself wasn't even interesting to begin with, and doesn't do much to improve on other aspects of the film.

Now, after that first part is over, one might think that Kitamura would at least make some entertaining action scenes to make up for the boring beginning. Sadly that is not the case. The two only fights are actually rehashes of similar fights from Hollywood movies, complete with bullet time effects and psychic powers. They're just not interesting or fun, Kitamura's creativity from "Versus" is gone, the small set even limits his often very impressive camera-work and it all boils down into generic and expectable fights, a shame really.

Evidently "Aragami" was better on all accounts and "Kitamura" had learned something from "Alive". So it wasn't at least a total loss watching this movie. If only to understand the errors made, how to fix them and create a better more entertaining movie.

Between "Versus" and "Azumi", I was getting around to liking director Kitamura, but after this entry I'm not so sure anymore. It's got all the promise, but never lives up to it.

A man is sent to the electric chair for the murder of his girlfriend's rapist. However, he survives the execution and is subsequently put into an experiment involving seedy government types, fellow prisoners, containment and a rather hostile alien entity trapped in a girl's body. It seems this entity only likes to latch onto the most blood thirsty host it can find, so death row inmates should make good subjects for government research. Oh, what will happen?

Any and everyone who has sat through one or more Japanese sci-fi flicks should be able to predict who the alien will latch onto and what will happen once it does. Giving that is a moot point, the film doesn't get going until it happens. Unfortunately, it takes a LONG time before the story gets moving, before that viewers have to sit through dry, dull dialogue scenes ad nausea.

Once the film finally takes off, it starts to have some fun. Guys with guns, super-powered fights, the works. It's just way too little, way too late to salvage much interest. Most viewers will not sit long enough to see things pick up, which is really too bad, there is some good sci-fi stuff later on.

A note about the ending: I won't ruin anything, but I think watchers should know that like other films by Kitamura, the movie concludes, but the story doesn't have much of an ending. Make of it what you will.

So many good ideas are wasted on dull story telling and limited conception. Worth a view only to hard-core J-film fanatics.

6/10

Tenshu is imprisoned and sentenced to death. When he survives electrocution the government officials give him a choice to either be electrocute at a greater degree or agree to some experiments. He chooses the experimentation and is placed in a large metallic cell with a bad ass criminal who also survived the electrocution. They can have whatever the want in the room (within reason), but they can't leave. after a few days there meals are cut down to one per day and the room temp is set up too 100. After some more alarms are sounded at intervals so they can't sleep. One day a 'witch' come into their cell (albeit a glassed off portion) What happens next I'll let you find out. I may be in the minority here but I liked the build up, it was intriguing to me. Now if the payoff was half as good as the build up was I would have rated this so much higher.

My Grade: C+

Media Blaster's 2 DVD set Extras: Disc 1) Director's Cut; Trailers for "Versus", "Aragami", "Attack the Gas Station", and "Deadly Outlaw Rekka" Disc 2) Theatrical Cut; Commentary with Hideo Sakaki, Ryuhei Kitamura, Sakaguchi Takuand Tsutomu Takahashi; Cast and crew interview; Making of; Original Trailer; and Promo Teasers