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August 9, 2006
Gedo Senki, More Im Kwon-taek
My article on Gedo Senki's Korean release. It's a hard news piece, not a review, so I stick to quotes et cetera. But the movie itself wasn't as disappointing as I thought it would be. In fact I was fairly pleased with it. For a first-time animation director, Goro Miyazaki showed good range, and I can't recall a Ghibli hero quite like Arren in the past. The son who kills his father in the first five minutes is certainly an odd protagonist for the son who takes over directing from (and by all accounts dislikes) his father. The domestic scenes were a nice throwback to the calmer films of Ghibli's past that didn't feel the need to be so darned epic all the way through.
But the biggest flaw was the completely conventional climax, especially considering that by all accounts Le Guin's original is much more dramatic and exciting, and better suited to animation. Ah well. And what's with those falling bricks in the final scenes? What is this, a 1980s television cartoon? Come on, you guys can do better than that.
Also reviewed the DVD of Aje Aje Bara Aje (Come, Come, Come Upwards, the worst-sounding title translation I've heard in a while), another Im film. It's a thinker, and I don't think I quite had the time to understand it before I started writing, as you may notice. It's clearly an important film, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I have some of his others, particularly Seopyeonje.
Also finally finished Genshiken. Man, I wish my college anime club had been that much fun. The other college kids were great, but the obscenely obese 40-something local otakus who kept coming every week ruined it for everyone.
Posted by b-applegate at August 9, 2006 8:09 PM
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