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iamcinema · 4 years

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IAC Reviews #011: Bloodstream (1985)

Let’s go back a few years close to when I made this blog, roughly 2013 or 2014.

Around this point, I was looking for some unique, weird, and obscure titles to share for the horror forums I was apart of and to make notes of to eventually add to my collection. If I was able to find names that had little to no available information on them, then I knew I was onto something special. This would often bring me to sites like TwistedAnger that sold copies and transfers of horror, exploitation, and mondo films to fill me in on elusive material that were often times obscure and never got an official release. This little search would bring me to find Bloodstream, and with the interesting cover art, I knew I had to find more about it - but much to my dismay, there was very little to be had or known about it.

Bloodstream is 1985 low-budget slasher film directed by Michael J. Murphy, whom A Slash Above has dubbed the Ted V. Mikels of the UK, which is quite the comparison. Given that there was very little to go off of with this beyond the site’s review, I was left to scratch my head a bit as to whether or not I’d be able to find the film in its entirety beyond a few clips, which only made me hungerier for more after reading the synopsis.

Our story centers on Alistair Bailey, an up and coming filmmaker who is suddenly fired from a project he’s working on by a sleazy VHS distributor named William King. Instead of the film being scraped like he thought, he later finds out that King plans on distributing the film globally and it becomes a critical hit with the home video market. Rightfully pissed by this, Bailey seeks revenge and conspires to go on a killing spree with vengeful employee in a similar manner as the deaths in his movie - only this time, the effects will be real.

This got me pretty excited to check this out, and once the film got added to Youtube a few years ago, I was quick to jump at this. As a full disclosure, I did see and review this for UTA several years ago, but the details of my experience are on the hazy side. So, I won’t count this as a retrospective review this time around, but I’ll reflect on what I can if it’s as good or bad as I remember it being all those years ago.

Bloodstream in One Gif:

So, let’s dip our toes into this one.

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But first, a little backstory about the film and what I was able to find. Going off the premise and opening alone, this one has a certain kind of tone to it, dare I say very pointed and self-aware. According to Murphy, the film was his response to distribution companies and presumably bad business experiences he’s had. Unfortunately, the film failed to be picked up for distribution before falling into total obscurity. I’ll return to this again towards the end to help wrap things up. The budget is also very low as one could expect; roughly £400 in 1985, or £1,053.02 in February 2020 (I’m not to sure what that comes out to in USD or CAD). Given the limited budget, I’m a bit surprised with what they were able to accomplish, and for that I’ll give it that much.

As far as our characters go, they were quite forgettable and the first time around I couldn’t remember who was who or what purpose they served. So, coming back into things with a fresh slate was helpful. Aside from our two focuses being Alistair and William, we have a couple others that will become topics of interest.

We have Judy, an actress brought into the flock by William whom he’s having an affair with to help advance her career. We also have Greg, a former pornstar who was brought in like Judy was to work under William. There’s also the matter of William’s family; his brother Simon, a misogynistic sleaze who has a thing for power while also being held under financial ransom by William at the company, his wife Sally, and his daughter Lisa - both of which whose dreams of being in the industry are held under William. All of this becomes important later on, which is why I brought this up. There’s also another focal character that ties this all together, that being Nikki, William’s secretary who acts as a mole and accomplice to helping Alistair get his revenge by adding fuel to the fire with her own hidden motives and intentions.

Now, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

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As far as the story goes, it’s not all that bad, and in a way it reminds me of some tellings of Phantom of the Opera where our masked antihero seeks to get revenge on the Opera house owners who did him wrong by stealing credit for his work after being presumed dead. In a simialr fashion as the Phantom, there’s a lot of anger and malice behind the premeditated violence, and each of the murders was dragged out with a purpose in mind to send a message.

The plot moves along fast, as we’re immedately dropped into the action from the jump and the revenge scheme starts to take off within the 30 minute mark in a 73-minute film. However, it can feel like a log jam a bit with things being slowed down or padded out in the form of Alistair watching either his own movies or those from William’s distribution company. The quality of those films is pretty damn atrocious, playing on various horror film tropes and references like vampires, cannibalism, the occult, body horror, zombies, and Exorcist II: The Heretic - yeah, that happens. While it’s quite clear why these scenes are here in the first place, the run time could be shaved down to at least 65 minutes of these weren’t here.

From a technical standpoint, it’s not all that great and is overall uninteresting. The lighting is fairly poor, though I’ve seen worse. Some shots are overlit and others don’t seem to have enough, and while it doesn’t make it hard to see what’s going on, it adds to the overall cheapness. Speaking of which, the sets themselves aren’t all that remarkable either and it shows that they did their best to work with whatever they had with the budget since some of the locations feel like sound stages with black walls if it wasn’t places the crew likely had easier access to like their homes or a basic office space to rent out. There’s also a weird flickering problem where it will go from color to black and white briefly, which is a bit annoying as well.

The sound is probably it’s weakest point of everything else stacked against it, as some moments will be decently clear and others you’ll need to rewind it and try to figure out what was going on. I had to do this three times with finding Greg’s name, because I thought they were saying “Burke” for some reason. There’s also a fair amount of bad ADR going on, which is a bit laughable when it comes up. The sound quality in general just makes for a bad time with figuring out what’s going on, particularly in crowded areas where you have the background noise to deal with on top of it sounding like the actors are on the other side of the room when they’re in front of the camera. So, unless you have a good ear, you might be a tad bit lost, but it’s not on levels of Ax’Em bad.

On that note, how about the gore and deaths? While they aren’t perfect and are on the hammy side, I’ll at least give them some credit for having memorable death scenes and succeeding in what they could do for a microbudget. Some of them give me similar vibes to other slasher movies of the decade like Final Exam, Woodchipper Massacre, and Cannibal Campout, which I think helps me to enjoy them a bit more in a way. It tried, so I guess an A for effort is fair enough - especially with a particular implied off-screen death that’s quite brutal and Murphy apparently got a lot of e-mails and letters about it.

The acting is a fairly mixed bag as well, with it being mostly meh or average for the type of low budget flick where none of the actors went on to do anything else. When it comes to Judy, Greg, Simon, and the rest of William’s family, they aren’t there much to land a solid impact. So, when they get their own individual scenes where they’re on their own, there isn’t a whole lot to see to comment on about how well they hold up. They’re okay, nothing truly dreadful though. When it comes to Alistair, Nikki, and William though, that’s a different story.

While I found Alistair (and to an extent, Nikki) to be sympathetic, they didn’t do much to pull at my heart strings to get me totally revved up for the revenge sequences. The same can be said for William as well. Yeah, he’s a total sleazy, swindling bastard, but that’s about it. As a villain, he’s sort of forgettable. The writing itself is fine, which is surprising for this type of film, but the acting is stiff and doesn’t feel natural or right. I don’t know if any of the actors had prior experience given that they haven’t shown up in any other productions that I’m aware of or if a lot of the fault could be placed on poor direction. It’s a damn shame too since this could have been much better if one or both of those things could have been resolved. Plus, it could have been much darker too by pulling out all the stops since it already took plenty of risks with the aformentioned death scene and the social commentary it addressed. But we’re 35 years too late for that now.

To return to something I said at the start regarding Murphy’s intentions behind the film, much of this is heavily reflected in Alistair’s characterization where he brushes off the films produced by William’s company as “garbage”, and rambles about censorship, on-screen violence, and belittling distribution companies during the final showdown between him and William. Subtlety isn’t in this film’s dictionary, even more so towards the end where it raises the question about whether or not horror movies and the media contribute to real-life violence; much akin to other later films like Video Violence and Woodchipper Massacre. Yeah, it’s not an original concept at all and it’s been no stranger to us since the turn of the century or even for the time when the Satanic Panic and PMRC Senate case was going on, but it’s nonetheless fun to see how different artists handle the topic at hand.

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So, what are my thoughts on this one? Well, I’m torn.

Back when I reviewed this in 2015, I was rather harsh on it for how low the quality was and that the acting was subpar at best. It left so much to be desired, as it could have been much bigger if it was given better resources to shine. I’d like to think there’s some other timeline where this could have been the success that Murphy wanted it to be, rather than his least favorite film he’s directed and ultimately faded away into obscurity - fulfilling its own prophecy in a way to become Bloodstream decades later.

With that being said, I think my old rating of 3/10 was a bit much. It’s no gem or masterpiece in any way, which again, is the sad part. But, it’s also not a total disasterpiece. If all the pieces fell in the right spot, this would be an easy 7.5/10 for me at the very least. However, with the technical issues and wooden acting, I’d give this a 4.5/10 to be on the generous side. If a day ever comes where someone wanted to do a faithful remake of this to show what we could have had, that would make for a fun night. If you want to give it a watch some time, it’s up on Youtube and it makes for a decent popcorn flick.

Rating: 4.5/10

#bloodstream #film #horror #horror movie #horror movies #horror film #iac reviews #horror review #film review #uk horror #euro horror #slasher #80s horror #80's horror #1980s horror #1980's horror #low budget filmmaking #low budget horror #michael j murphy

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yeonchi · 6 years

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Dub Logistics Part 23: The Hypocrisy of Greed

“Why is it justified to call out anti-consumer practices in games, but greedy to call out the omission of dual audio options in Japanese games?”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned last year, it’s that there are fans of Western games who claim to be against “unfinished video games” which can be “completed” with pre-order bonuses, season passes and DLC while also being against the inclusion of English or Japanese voice options to compliment whichever language is in the game first. These are the types of hypocrites who should probably never touch a Japanese video game lest they embarrass themselves with their hypocrisy.

This seemingly irrational paranoia comes after a debate and feud I had with some people in that exact category last year, who I will not be mentioning by name. The fact that they disagreed with my views and opinions on game localisation, yet being against corporate greed in the gaming industry, was strange to me at the time, but in reflection, the events of the debate and feud were no better than mere pettiness, sock puppetry, baiting, flaming and virtue-signalling on both sides. Some of the points they made, though convincing, were questionable at best, so if you decide to revisit my older posts and see what they said, then I recommend that you take their points with a grain of salt.

This instalment isn’t about those guys, however. I couldn’t care less about them now and to the other party(ies) from the debate, I’m sorry if you were expecting to see more inflammatory comments about you being “dub haters”, but it’s not all about you - chances are that there could be other people who share the same hypocritical views you do. Just between you and me, however, I’ve heard about the recent Count Dankula case and sentencing. While it is great to hear that he only got fined £800 instead of being sentenced to prison, the fact that he had to go to court over a joke about a political ideology that should have gone extinct after World War II is absolutely outrageous. In spite of what happened between us, I think we should be grateful that we’re not in the UK, we’re not that famous (let’s face it) and that our feud hasn’t escalated to a point where either of us have to be put on trial for our bullshit. There are many other famous people who are worse than any of us and I think that the world should be focusing more on them and not on any petty things like these. That is all I am going to say.

Anyway, back on topic now. In the past, I had learnt that Western gaming companies, like EA and Ubisoft, are just some of many other culprits involved in anti-consumer practices like micro-transactions, season passes and “essential” DLCs for the sake of having a “complete gaming experience”. However, I honestly thought it would never happen to Japanese games until I learnt that Dynasty Warriors 9 and Dissidia Final Fantasy would be getting season passes. That is how blissfully ignorant I was until recently, when I realised that all gamers should be united against corporate greed in gaming, whether it be in the game itself or in localisation. The fact that people are still dividing themselves and others over voice preferences today is absolutely insane.

The reason why I wanted to write this instalment was because of a couple of posts I did in February regarding Dynasty Warriors 9. A week after I posted my crosspost from the English Dubbed Game News page, a fan of mine (and yes, if you, the people on the other side of the debate and feud, are reading this, I actually do have fans, contrary to your “popular” opinion) sent me a link to Jim Sterling’s video titled “The Dismal Degradation Of Dynasty Warriors” and I wrote a little follow-up post on it. In the video, he mentions Koei Tecmo’s negligence of English dubbing in their newer localisations along with the “money grubbing” DLC in Dynasty Warriors 9. It should also be noted that Jim has posted some videos regarding his views on corporate greed in the gaming industry.

At the end of the post, I said, “On a side note, it’s a shame that some people (or should I say, hypocrites) will agree with some points in Jim’s video while disagreeing with other points.” Someone who read the post was seemingly confused by it, thinking that I said that it was hypocritical to not agree with everything Jim said in the video. Though it was partly true, I clarified to him my view that people who are against “money grubbing” DLC, while also calling other people “greedy” for wanting games to be localised with an extra English or Japanese voice option, were hypocrites. The other person replied saying that even though both cases were related to the umbrella category of “corporate greed”, they were very different things - the former was about getting consumers to pay for a more complete gaming experience and the other is just the company being cheap in a way that doesn’t cost consumers any money.

Here’s my understanding of this logic - the original release of a game, whether it be in Japan or any other region, is the actual game itself, while localisations are considered re-releases of the game with “extra features”, namely extra subtitles or voice tracks. Realistically, publishers can go without localising some of their games, but I feel that in recent years, publishers are forcing themselves to localise as many games as they can in the shortest amount of time possible. This results in corners being cut from localisation and as a result, we get games that aren’t dual audio, aren’t fully dubbed or aren’t translated up to par.

And look, I get the argument about budgets and that, but that’s not the point here. The point is that localisations, translations and voice actors can have as much significance in a game (or anime or whatever) and its respective franchise as a whole. If it weren’t for that logic, a lot of games (and animes and the like) wouldn’t be as popular as they are today and a lot of English voice actors (and by extension, Japanese seiyuus) wouldn’t be revered today for the characters they voiced recently or even years ago.

Some people believe that voice languages are a minor aspect of the game and that they will play with (realistically) any language that the game gives them. Like with dub preferences, the choice is entirely personal, but when opinion-neutral people try to tell others that “the language doesn’t matter”, this is teetering on fanboy cuckoldry because it disregards the arguments made by people on each side of the debate. Just because you are okay with what you are given doesn’t mean everyone should be okay with what they are given as well. For everyone’s sake, people should be fighting against corporate greed of any kind in gaming, whether it be in regards to DLC or localisation.

I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a bit. Let’s say that Western gaming companies are claiming, or allowing their fans to imply, that their budget has become a bit tight lately, so they have to cut corners in their games or result to money grubbing measures like implementing micro-transactions or releasing “extra” game content as DLC and letting fans imply that buying that DLC will give them a more complete experience. You’re not happy with the company doing this, so you make a habit of complaining about it on social media. Later, you find that some people are calling you greedy and entitled and that you should be grateful that the company has made the game in the first place. This is the kind of stuff that dub fans and sub fans are getting on social media just because we are asking for fair representation in the form of English or Japanese voice options.

Before you derail this topic with the typical cuck response, “But nobody owes us anything, so game companies don’t owe you anything as well,” just stop for a moment and think about this. Humility is a good concept to know, but it shouldn’t be taken literally on everything because you’ll never be happy if you don’t enjoy the things you like. It would be nice if people were humble enough not to chase up the debts of others, but I’m sure that when you lend something to someone, you would expect them to give it back to you. If someone does a favour for you, then it is in good faith that you pay that favour back at a later time. As for humility in the aspect of materialism, then it is expected that if you decide to buy something, then it will be of good quality and worth of its use until you decide to buy a better version of that thing later.

When you are a fan of something or someone, you would expect to be impressed with what they put out every time. You have a right to make compliments when they do something right and you have a right to make criticisms when they do something wrong. However, something that may be considered wrong by one person can be considered right by another and thus, that is how conflicts start. If you are a fan of something that receives a lot of criticism, think about what they may have done to disappoint you or the rest of their fanbase. I’m not giving any examples here because you need to think for yourself in order to do this; being part of the sheeple will not help you in the long run because one day, you may be disappointed over a thing that you like.

If “game companies don’t owe their fans anything”, then fans don’t owe game companies anything either. The mentality that fans are expected to support everything that someone does (whether they see it as good or bad) has the potential to be toxic and so, should be discouraged. On the other hand, some responsibility also lies on those who make stuff for their fans, including game companies - they are expected to maintain their fanbase by going the extra mile to keep them impressed.

If you like an aspect of something but not another, don’t put down other fans who may like the thing you dislike. Everyone is entitled to something, even their own opinion. That being said, if you like Western games and Japanese games, then maybe supporting fairer game content while acknowledging that not all companies have the money to dub, sub, or licence the original voice track of a game is not a good idea because you’re just going to end up sounding like a hypocrite. If you’re one of those people who like to think that way, then maybe you should refrain from talking about Japanese game localisations.

If complaining about any form of greed is a form of greed in itself, then the concept of being against greed is absolutely hypocritical.

Just another reminder that I will be ending the Dub Logistics series with Part 30 at the end of the year, so if you have something you would like me to cover before then, please inform me as soon as possible.

The fact that this instalment was posted one year on from the initial debate that sparked the feud is completely coincidental. It’s really funny that I never thought to talk about this hypocrisy back then, but better late than never, I suppose.

With regards to the Count Dankula case I mentioned earlier, feel free to read up on it and do some research, because I feel that this case has set a precedent for free speech in the United Kingdom and possibly, the world. The pettiness that led to Dankula being put on trial in the first place is the same pettiness that is causing YouTube videos and Facebook pages (along with memes) to be taken down in the name of “offensive content”. The reporting systems on social media have already been abused enough in the past few years; we don’t need petty things like this to be taken to court so that victims can suffer for a long time while they await their sentence.

#dub logistics #english dub #video games

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wittypenguin · 4 years

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“Chikyû kogeki meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan” (1972) or Godzilla vs Gigan

AKA: “Earth Destruction Directive: Godzilla vs. Gigan” [literal Japanese translation]; or “Godzilla on Monster Island,” which is daft, as it’s all about what Godzilla does after he gets away from Monster Island; or «Frankensteins Höllenbrut» (German for “Frankenstein’s hell brood”), which says a fair bit about how the German distributors didn’t understand how to name monsters and may have had a bit to learn about reproduction.

Now THIS is more like what I signed up for! Technology and enforced peace instead of good old cunning and freedom of will, plus stuff blowing up. Yup! This is the good stuff!

New cover illustration by Becky Cloonan — — — —

The story… uh… story? Do we care? There’s tonnes of smashing of model… oh, all right…

I had to re-watch this, frankly, as things really do blend together quickly at this end of the history.

We meet a would-be comic artist. He gets a ‘look in’ for a job with the World Children’s Land Committee building Godzilla Tower using footage of earth movers from earlier films to clear the ground.

World Children’s Land; a place of peace, harmony, and a 14-story radiation beast [left, with scaffolding]. — — — —

The children will learn about Absolute Peace in a library and classrooms surrounding a park-like setting.

Why the inclusion of Godzilla? Kids love monsters, but Monster Island will be destroyed once the project is completed. Absolute Peace cannot include the reality of monsters who might wreak havoc, I suppose.

It seems that the WCLC is not what it seems to be, however. A small reel of magnetic tape holding the details of their ‘Action 2’ has found its way into the hands of our young artist. The next stage in bringing Absolute Peace to the entire world is no longer in the WCLC’s control!

When the tape is played, the sound (which is similar to what audio cassettes with machine language programmes like Missile Attack and Asteroids clones were like when listened to instead of being plugged into a TRS-80) is picked-up both by the brains behind the WCLC as well as Godzilla and Angilas on Monster Island, who then communicate with each other by way of speech balloons.

In the English dub, in which the monsters infamously talk, Godzilla mispronounces Angilas’ name as “Angila.”

Dude! How long have you two been hanging out on that island together, and you can’t even get the guy’s name right?

Anyway, Angilas is sent to find out what’s going on in Japan, from whence cometh the strange signals. After Angilas is repelled by the Japanese Defence Forces, Godzilla and Angilas are reported heading toward the Children’s Land construction area, while King Ghodorah and Gigan approach from the depths of space. It seems that the WCLC is a front for aliens who have been seeking a planet to rule over, replacing their current one, which has been destroyed by water and air pollution, radioactivity, and complete depletion of basic resources. Earth is on the same path, mostly due to industrialization, so is perfect for them, as human life will no longer be supported, leaving the aliens (who in reality are big cockroaches) free to do what they wish.

Gigan [on right, played by Kenpachirô Satsuma], proof of beaks being more useful than considered before this. — — — —

The design of the monster Gigan is insane. He’s got a double beak, in which one is not set inside the other, but at right angles to the other, so when he bites something, he can do it from four directions. Additionally, he’s got some sort of circular saw down the front of his abdomen, which he can turn off and on so when he’s close enough to something he can then carve his way through it; a building, say. He also has one gigantic, glowing red eye ball which takes-up the entire width of his, admittedly narrow, head, but he doesn’t shoot a laser beam out of it in the way one would expect given its looks as that was seen to be not fitting with its character. Over-all, he resembles a massive chicken or perhaps a rooster on the plain side (barring the eyeball). He’s from Space, naturally, so he’s bound to be a little odd in the fashion department.

King Gidorah in this one is more restrained than his last outing, owing to labour restrictions at the studio. To make him look ‘good and proper,’ they needed one person in the suit and at least one person controlling the wires for each head, plus some people on wings, then there’s the feet and tails; all together there are 22 wires involved and that count changes to 24 when it’s in flight. It’s super-complicated, so the end result is that when you’re not seeing some footage recycled from an earlier film, he’s like as not standing there laughing at Godzilla falling down at the hands of Gigan. This is a shame as it’s a fantastic character. He could have used a fresh coat of paint, too.

The over all message here is one that ‘peace is not easily achieved, and is entirely subjective.’ After all, one person’s ‘peace’ is another person’s idea of ‘social repression.’ One of the most frustrating things about humanity is our habit of making choices, both good and bad, and our insistence that we must be left free to make those choices, for it is only by choosing poorly that we learn to make better decisions in the future. To have the options we can select be restricted, or even to not be permitted to choose at all, is anathema to humanity’s continued evolution into a higher being.

Sometimes, you simply choose to watch a 100 or so metre tall monster smash the heck out of Tokyo’s harbour!

★★★★☆

#Godzilla #Gojira #Gojira tai Gaigan #Godzilla vs Gigan #King Ghidorah #Angilas #World Children’s Land Committee #Gigan #Criterion Collection #Dear God What Have I Done to Myself?

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canvaswolfdoll · 7 years

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CanvasWatches: Your Name

I saw the recent Anime Film darling Your Name in the theater. Dubbed, of course.

I enjoyed to chance to see anime on the big screen, instead of on my computer monitor. Hopefully, my little bit will encourage more of such releases, and more dubbing. Especially in light of the controversy surrounding Ghost in the Shell and Death Note adaptations.[1] Don’t get me wrong, there’s an amount of respecting the source material that needs to be done, including not succumbing to celebrity casting and carefully consideration of what whitewashing may do.[2]

My fear, however, is that the wrong lesson will be taken by Hollywood, as it so often does. There is an importance and reason for localizing media, and Netflix already has so few Dubbed Anime nowadays, that I’m afraid what producers will take away is less ‘be more faithful’ and more ‘General audiences don’t want anime’.

Which hurts my dub-loving heart.

I tried to do my part, though. And I can only assume from the ample number of trailers that ad money was intensely required to even get onto theater screens. Even Ghibli films don’t see wide releases, and those are backed by Disney![3]

Your Name was a wild success over in Japan, and the highest grossing Anime film worldwide. Not bad, Makoto Shinkai!

Though I hadn’t looked into him before seeing the film,[4] Shinkai’s been making films since at least 1999, and while I haven’t seen most of them, I do recognize a couple titles.

Voices of a Distant Star was one I’ve tried, but was slow moving so I gave up.

The Place Promised In Our Early Days was a film I kept meaning to get to on Netflix, but never did, and it’s been removed.

And… oh hey! Children Who Chase Lost Voices! Which I previously described as an attempt to replicate a Ghibli Film. However, it was instrumental in the development of my sign off phrase so… good job?

I mean, with Your Name, Shinkai’s been attempting to avoid the ‘Next Miyazaki’ label, which I think just makes it funnier.

If I’m being honest, I originally wasn’t going to review Your Name, because, though it’s a really good film, and I left with a sense of ‘Wow! I want to tell stories like that someday!’ I didn’t really have anything to talk about. Wasn’t bad, so I don’t have any flaws to mock. Wasn’t especially unique with how it told the story, so I can’t gush about that. It was very pretty, animated superbly. Technically brillant, as far as my amautuer animation eye can discern.[6]

Still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least try. Keep my flow of creative output going.

It’s a film best left unspoiled, and that’s what I will endeavour to do, as it’s a limited run, and the home release isn’t until… I think October’s been theorized? So I want to hype it up, but leave room for enjoyment down the line.

I had next to no idea what to expect going in, since that’s how I prefer it for high concept fair. I was faintly aware of the Freaky Friday switch premise, which thankfully they open with so I don’t have to sit around waiting for the gimmick to arrive. Anime’s typically good about starting at the good part, and building the story from there.

For the sake of balance, the first act is heavily focused on our female lead, Mitsuha, as we learn the difficulties she’s experiencing in her normal life, and exploring the world the male lead, Taki, lives in. This, unfortunately, unbalances the character development somewhat, but does help increase audience empathy for the motivations during the third act.

The actual body swapping is what you’d expect. The two are initially confused, start figuring out what specifics they can, enjoy the unique aspects unavailable to them during their normal lives, and then establish a form of written communication.

The prevalence of cell phones, however, does make one of the late story twists somewhat questionable, since there’s data cell phones readily provide that should’ve made one of the two pause and go ‘wait a minute.’

However, that’s covered by a Walking Simulator ‘Sure’.[7]

The elements of magical realism are well executed, and some of the more obscure pieces get explained and foreshadowed well in advance, so you don’t feel cheated or feel confused.

It’s… Your Name is a very charming film. It’s solidly produced, the writing’s good, even if the execution of the main premise is rather by the numbers, and the fiddly bits are in spoiler territory.

There’s very little to be said besides: hey, go see this movie. It’s good. Not world shattering, but good, and inspiring, and very, very charming.

If it’s still playing in your area, go buy a ticket and enjoy. Maybe consider watching the Dub, for my sake. But you don’t have to. Otherwise… keep an eye out for the home release. I’m likely to add it to my own collection.

If you wish to support me, consider donating to my Patreon. I also welcome comments and other communications, because I get lonely.

Quetzalcoatl.

[1] Neither of which I’ve seen at the time of writing. [2] For the record, I will say a Live Action adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist might work well with a caucasian cast. [3] At least, I think that’s still the case. GKids seems to have taken over, but I’m not sure if that’s under the Disney umbrella… I don’t look too closely at industry happenings. [4] I try to let media stand on its own merits, and I don’t usually put much weight on the names behind the scenes.[5] [5] I should probably start keeping a closer eye on writers, though. I do prefer to give them more credit. [6] Which, as I continue to critique things, I feel is improving. [7] A concept proposed by Alex and Cam here, wherein it’s a sort of mental currency for things that you can let pass for the sake of enjoying the narrative. A smaller version of the One Big Lie I usually tout.

#CanvasWatches #your name #anime #kimi no na wa #CanvasReviews

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