Amer béton

"Tekkonkinkreet", literally translated as reinforced concrete, is an hypnotic experience set upon the kaleidoscopic drop of some truly gorgeous drawings which tells the tale of two street urchins as they do battle with an array of colourful characters in order to defend their city from being taken over. Adapted from the three volume manga series by Taiyo Matsumoto, the film doesn't usually carry the infuriating hallmarks of a manga-to-anime switch over, which can often make the film an unenjoyable experience as the viewer struggles to come to terms with the story and characters and in the process miss the film. In this instance, any preconceptions are staved as "Tekkonkinkreet" absorbs the viewer all but instantly in a cacophony of animation, sound and, perhaps surprisingly, emotion.

Tekkonkinkreets original manga form is what is known as a "seinen" manga, which is a subset of the animated genre which targets males, usually, from between the ages of eighteen and thirty, and as a twenty-four year old male myself, I perhaps enjoyed it more than others outside my demographic bracket. Ostensibly, it is a boys film as the premise bases itself on gangster films as our two street urchin protagonists, the aptly named "Black" and "White" find themselves coming into contact with an ever escalating array of Yakuza as they try to take over the ridiculously sublime "Treasure Town". There is a great deal of violence within the film (which while in my eyes completely justifies the progression of the film is incredibly misleading when you look at the UK Film Certificate Branding of a mere 12) as the battles waged become more intense, more bloody and more important to the survival of our two heroes. Tekkonkinkreet also utilises a much more avant-garde style of animation which we are currently beginning to see more of in the western world as an increasing acceptance of things which are outside of the "norm" are filtering through, and it is certainly befitting of the style. Tekkonkinkreet successfully delivers on appeasing any and all who are looking for high quality hand drawn animation which surpasses the eternally vapid conveyor belt of repetitiveness that is Pixar, but it also delivers on being more than just a "fighting" film.

The intrinsic parts of Tekkonkinkreet prove in being the messages the director and original creator are wishing to convey to their audiences, of which there are two major points. Firstly, we have the ying and yang nature of Black and White, how their coexistence is precisely that, how they are mirror images of each other, how in essence they are two parts of the same hole and that you could be forgiven for thinking someone spliced a singular entity at birth to form two. "Black" is the streetwise member of the "Cats", as they are known within the city, as he has a savvy and cunning which has enabled he and white to be high on the Treasure Town food chain. As expected for being orphaned children, each have their issues, and with Black it is the impression that he is only one bad day away from total insanity and mental breakdown, while with "White" the issue is if he were to have a mental breakdown it wouldn't have much to break. White is stated as being eleven within the film yet quite clearly finds it difficult keeping a grasp on reality and his surroundings as his mental age is quite obviously, less than that. However, it is not merely how much White relies on Black for survival with the treacherous confines, but it is also how much Black relies on White, as the director twists the uses of Black and White and indeed Good and Evil as roles interchange in all quarters. Secondly, we have yet again another confrontation, another coming together of two forces yet this time it is more theory based. Treasure Town is a gloriously colourful island sitting sedately in the centre of a river yet its buildings and inhabitants for all their grandeur seem incredibly outdated. Treasure Town isn't exactly a time warp but you could be forgiven for thinking so, it is a place contented in its own time, but for the Yakuza this is not acceptable as they wish to bring Treasure Town forward into the 21st Century, to update the scenery, to turn it into a money making venture of epic proportions . This second theme resonates with a fear of old replacing new, yet the new not being perhaps as grand as everyone believes it to be, it is a fear of traditions being eradicated by a machine which has no need for sentiment, and this feeling, from both points of view, is embedded within characters on all sides of the battle.

Tekkonkinkreet is a highly charged emotional film, which looks at characters interactions and dependence on each other the yings and yangs within the city itself, the coming together of old and new and more evidently, people's desire for power. The phrase "my city" is uttered on numerous occasions as individuals all attempt to lay claim to the treasured turf, yet none truly understanding what the phrase means or why they are saying it. Tekkonkinkreet is a highly successful anime, which blends together elements of crime, violence, humour and fantasy creating a cerebral journey for the senses as director Michael Arias superbly transcribes this moralistic tale with an energetic style of directing which perhaps possesses some of the best and "coolest" "reveal" shots in recent times. Tekkkonkinkreet is an absorbing adventure which transcends genres and blurs styles in a hot pot of beautiful angst and proves itself to be worth a watch for any who allows themselves to be enveloped by a world which is never told in black and white.

This will be brief because I'm not sure what to say. I don't mean that in a bad way, its just that trying to describe this film is not at all easy.

Tekkonkinkreet is the story of two kids named Black and White. They are known as the Cats and are considered by some to be the protectors of a part of the city known as Treasure Town. As a year goes by a yakuza captain returns to the city and a man named Snake appears with his eye on turning that part of the city into an amusement park.

I'm explaining it badly, forgive me, since this is a film thats better to experience than to hear about. Using a mix of 2D and 3D cgi this is a film that is vibrantly alive. There is a real sense of place that is missing from many animated films. The world bleeds off the screen. The film rarely sits still its constantly in motion as characters go from place to place or engage in battles for life and death. Its an amazing thing to watch.

The characters are very real. I watched the film with the English dub (I know boo hiss) and the choices of actors was wonderful. The voices of the kids were kids and seemed to perfectly match their personalities. The same goes for the other characters as well. What I liked was that the kids were kids. They seemed to be real kids behaving in the situations presented. Granted the film is wildly fantastical but the personalities and behaviors outside of the running and jumping and beating people up was real.

A word of warning, this is a dark film at times. There is a great deal of violence, which despite being animated is very nasty and bloody. The film also has some dark undertones as some of the characters slip into the darkness of their souls. Its disturbing enough to get an R rating.

On the down side the film takes a while to get going. I was about a third of the way in before it started to click with me. No doubt it was due in part to the very large cast of characters. (I'm certain this is going to play better on a second viewing). My other problem with the film was a shift towards the end which makes me think I may have missed something along the way. I feel as though I missed the climax of somethings. (Again this will probably be better on the next viewing) Over all worth a shot. definitely see this in widescreen since the compositions are geared to that.

Hyperknetic animation helps along a sometimes too sprawling narrative of homeless street kids White and Black who leap from building to building in the neon streets of Treasure Town.

Treasure Town looks like an abandoned psychedelic amusement park that's been over run with urban sprawl (which is pretty much the center theme of the film, the lose of balance, lose of innocence, illustrated through the symbolically named White and Black). Actually almost all of the characters have names reflecting some kind of duality, "Choco" and "Vanilla", "Dusk" and "Dawn" etc.

Black is the muscle, somber and always ready to fight to defend "his town" While White is the more innocent, slightly brain damaged younger of the two who can't dress himself but can leap from the backs of moving cars, like la parkour runners bitten by radioactive spiders. "Chinese Monkeys can ride clouds" White states at the beginning of the film, referencing certain aspects of China's mythic "Journey To The West", before they begin their matrix leaps/gliding across the city. The first ten minutes of which, are the best moments in the movie(and no it is never explained how they can fly, leap, fight as they do, so much so it's easy to forget how vulnerable as children they are, which is used to get effect).

The trouble comes when there's too many Yakuza characters given too much back story, too much over inflated psychodrama with Black attempting to rid himself of his solitary monster like Minetaur persona (this time a Greek myth of the bull monster locked in the labyrinth), and not enough explanation of who the mysterious villain was, who were his henchmen refereed to as both "killing machines" and "aliens" more than once, and what if any connection did he have to re-developing the town, killing the kids, his mission from God, and the mysterious organization who lent him the monsters? That being said, I was emotionally absorbed into the film enough by that point, and satisfied with the unique fluidity and vividness of the color palettes, to ignore the weaker points of plot, til the movie was over. Enjoyable and unique anime, but like so many it reaches for seriousness, when whimsy would be a better fit.

Eye-watering Japanimation might not have all the spit-shined polish afforded a Miyazaki production, though any excuse offered from the same studio that provided many eclectic animated thrills with the Animatrix compilation could only be explained by admiring their unabashed passion for detail. Nearly every frame of this marvelous, Manga-adapted feature is littered with an unprecedented level of specific illustrations that really aims to set the bar for sheer artistic commitment. It is the city itself that rules the film, and these passionate animators do not disappoint when it comes to delivering scene after scene showcasing an unfathomable detail rendered in these massive, severely inspired cityscapes.

First time Director Michael Arias does stumble a bit at times, making the episodic material feel that way, but we do see a compelling fusion with CGI effects in many of the action scenes that make this visually stimulating feast rise to fluidly spectacular levels. Despite many pratfalls found in the script, sometimes silly voice acting (common in the genre), and some (at times) counter-intuitive pacing, scene-for-scene Tekon kinkurîto (US title is Tekkonkinkreet) will probably remain the most compulsively rewatchable, primarily hand-drawn work of art to be savored by pencil-aficionados until the next driven team of artists desires even more.

I saw this movie a couple of days ago. I thought this one is one of the best in the recent anime films including Miyazaki's. Even satisfied more than 007.

Based on the comic by Matsumoto Taiyo (also Ping Pong), Michael Arius, who joined Animatrix production, directed the film. As he knows many Japanese old downtowns and landscapes, his way of constructing the imaginary town is so real though many Asian tastes are added, and I believe the town in the film must attract Americans too. The story is basically fights between two boys and intruders, old traditions and new. I also impressed how this Anime can express things which I have not felt in the other Anime films. Michael gathered many best creators in Japan and the world. I really recommend Tekkon to you all.

By the way, MOMA's Artforum picked up this film as #1 in 2006. http://www.artforum.com/inprint/id=12076