Casshern

Tuesday February 15 2005 Watching Casshern was one of the more bizarre movie experiences of my life. This was not just because of the story (although it does have some elements that made me scratch my head), but also because of the wide range of emotions that I went through while watching it. In the beginning I felt excited, which was followed by astonishment, after which came resentment, which finally made way for the excited feeling that I always get when I have just seen a movie which really moved me. It's not what I expected beforehand from this movie, which should have been just a cool Japanese science fiction movie, but which turned out to be so much more.

Casshern is based on a Japanese TV-series. In it, the viewer is transported into the future where they world has just seen a big war between an army from the East and an army from Europe. The East won, even though there are still rebellious factions that try to overthrow the government. The war has ravaged the world, and more than ever there is a need for peace and harmony. A scientist is conducting research into a new technology, that can rejuvante bodies and make mankind feel more alive again. The government is not interested in this technology, since they fear it could endanger their position, and the scientist is forced to work together with a sinister organization. As you can probably guess, something goes wrong and before you know it a group of all-powerful superhumans roam the planet, intent on destroying everything and everybody, so that they can rebuild the planet from the ground up.

Enter Casshern, the son of the scientist responsible for these problems. He had died during the war, but his body came back to life in the same way the superhumans did. He gets a special super-armor in order to fight the superhumans and battle commences, especially when he discovers that the superhumans are for some reason holding his mother hostage.

If you read the above, you could be forgiven for thinking that Casshern is just another no-brainer action movie where explosions are king and where plot development is something that was left out of the plans. But Casshern is much more than that. It's not just a superhero movie, it's also a war movie, a romance and a drama. And while the action sequences will excite you, there is also a deeper meaning hidden in this movie, that comes to the surface at the end and which culminates in a beautiful ending. That's not to say this movie is perfect though.

The biggest problem I have with Casshern, is that at times it's baffling. You sit there in the theater, watching what's going on and thinking to yourself: "What on earth is all this?" You will have this feeling for quite some time during the movie, and although there are some moments that are more coherent, I got really annoyed with all the things happening without a real explanation. For instance, the whole superhuman thing. I understand that there were a lot of bodyparts, which the scientist had wanted to use to replace bodyparts of soldiers injured in the war. For some reason though, those bodyparts grow together into whole bodies. Soldiers from one or other organization kill most of these 'new' people, but some of them survive. For superhumans, they are pretty weak in the beginning of the movie, especially when you see what they can do towards the end. And these superhumans end up in some castle, that for some reason is filled to the brim with powerful robot warriors. And for some reason, the leader of the superhumans can command these robots with his mind or whatever, and...

You know what, forget it! The key to enjoying Casshern is to not try to understand too much of it, but to try and enjoy all the small, beautiful moments hidden inbetween the weirdness. Casshern is big on emotions, which makes you care about the characters, even if you have no idea if you should or not. Besides that, Casshern looks lush and vibrant, mixing visuals from videogames with the same technology that made Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow so special. Still, this movie is not just style over substance. For some reason the characters get under your skin and you start to care for them. A lot of the characters die, but since this is a Japanese movie, they die in an interesting way. They all have revelations coming to them in their dying moments (makes you wonder if they shouldn't save their dying breaths for something else than holding a speech). And the ending is amazing. You don't see it coming, not even if you do understand everything that is happening, but it will touch you nonetheless. And in a time when more and more bland movies come out, that is one of the best recommendations you can get.

***½

Comments

[Blake]

This movie has to be the most amazing movie I've ever seen. Things like these barely get out of Japan and we have to get stuck with crap like Tom Cruise.

Some of the plot holes as you described were confusing at first also (Especially since I missed about 1/5th of the film since it was a rented scratched DVD.) But considering it's based on anime aspects, it doesn't need to make much sense right? To my understanding the war that went on at Zone Seven was to gather body parts for the pool of cells, which is rather disgusting, you notice at the end it's explained that Burai was "cut up" just for an experiment, and of course the obvious visuals/flashbacks of how Tetsuya killed Burai's wife and Burai himself was also murdered, which is why the story most likely revolves around him as the one seeking vengeance after his rebirth. My guess would be the "frozen lightning" was summoned in reaction to these perfect cells and somehow merged it's power bringing the cells to life and making them function which is how the bodies were able to piece themselves together stronger than before. And I suppose the theme adapted to this is "survival of the strongest," of course being newly reborn they'd be fragile, and note that it's an experiment gone wrong, therefore there are some MUTANTS with deficiancies like Akubon who appears to be dumb.

As for the robots obeying without voice command, they obviously have some range of intelligence and pay attention to Burai's movements, such as if you notice when he clenches his fists it's an order to fire (Which would be an action expressed in a fantasy.)

Overall I love your review, it's great to see someone praising such a great film more than criticizing.

[Tom]

Am I getting it wrong or do all the characters (including Casshern) die in the end? Do they all end up in, for want of a better term, the golden place? Are the beams of golden light that seem to emmanate from the dead soldiers and stream into casshern supposed to be their souls? Is luna really ressurected after being shot by cassherns father or is the conversation she has with casshern just in his mind? What on earth is the energy beam flying through space supposed to be?

Great film otherwise though.

[Jason]

So... how come everybody seems to be in denial of this huge lightning bolt-shaped pillar, and the fact that Tetsuya and Luna mysteriously explode in the end and the lightning bolt flies through outer space and lands on some other random planet somewhere? WTF was that all about? Every review I've read seems to completely edit all mention of that weird lightning bolt out entirely, chalking off the the reanimation of Azuma's body parts to "a freak accident in the lab". Freak accident my ass, that was a huge freaking pillar of concrete that came from outer space! Does nobody care about that? Was that just completely unimportant to the movie? Was I wrong in thinking that had anything to do with anything? Does -anybody- know what the heck was going on here?

[Momo Chan]

Dudes,

The way I see it. Yes Luna comes back to life. She says that Burai's blood brings her back and that his rage has infected her. (i watched the region 1 dvd version so i have no idea if it's what she really says or not) But that's what the translation had. Then I guess the souls of all the dead are called into the two of them and launched into outer space in search of a new place to begin and live in peace. How Casshern "wins" the fight against violence. Their "bolt" lands on some random planet, but you'll notice that it's the same time of concrete bolt. So i'm thinking that the bolt that landed in Casshern's planet was just somebody else who conquered "violence" on their planet. ... farfetched I know, but hey it's a theory. :)

Enjoy.

[Momo Chan]

Crap I meant "type" of bolt not time of bolt

[powerfortressofdoom-1-million]

Ok just because I kept seeing wierd resemblences I'm going to bring this up.....why does this casshern feel like a really twisted rip-off verion of final fantasy 7

I mean neo-cells?!
Wierd mobb-like group In power, who are also sucking the world dry?!
A silverhead anti christ type evil character?!
Main character and girlfriend?!

Jenova cells.
Shinra and the turks.
Sephiroth.
Cloud + tifa

Plus the million other smaller similarities strewn about the film

Anyways I guess I'm saying, did anybody else notice it?

[Lives]

I absolutely loved this movie, although I had to watch it three times to understand the deeper meanings. I did notice the similarities between FF7, but that's typical Anime Sci Fi, I've read many other that convey the same message with the cells thing and even a few with white haired anti-christs.
I was curious if any one knew why Burai was the only one who said "I don't see anything, I don't see it at all" when he died, but all the other Neo-Sapiens said they saw it. Maybe it's because I watched the translated version? Because he's in the peaceful world in the end, doesn't make sense to me.
I kind of took the lighting bolt to be some kind of energy force, that regenerated the Neo-sapiens by giving them energy. But in the beginning the energy must have been hateful and angry, but at the end, the lighting bolt must have been a different type of energy, hopeful, peaceful because it created a better, peaceful Earth instead of human hating mass murdering beings.

[Lives]

Sorry for writing so much, but for anyone wondering I found an explanation for the lighting that seems to make sense.
The movie ends with Casshern's spirit exploding with the souls of everyone else who died in the final battle. Together, they blast off across the Universe, slamming down in the form of a metal lightning bolt on a distant world. This is the explanation for the metal lightning from earlier in the film, spirits from another world smashing into Earth. According to "Casshern", the spark of life is death on another world.
And for anyone else who was wondering about the numbers on Azuma's wrist, it's because all the Zone Seven's were tattooed, the numbers, that I mistook for stitches, are on the Neo-Sapiens and the corpses in the vats.
Another interesting thing someone pointed out to me, in the beginning the statue of Casshern was holding a lighting bolt and when you see the statue later the bolt is gone.

[Fang]

Casshern is a guardian god/angel of that planet or the original humans (neo-sapeiens). Notice the god-like statue at the beginning with wings and a lightning bolt. During the war Casshern was angry with what the world was doing and abandoned them letting the war continue. Then when Dr. Azuma discovered neo-cells and resorted to using them for military research, Casshern wanted to punish them by striking the pool of neo-cells and reviving the neo-sapiens. Casshern was angry with mankind and decided to revive them to teach mankind a lesson. Notice when the neo-sapiens are traveling to Zone Seven when they are in the snow the leader cries out to the statue which he is crying out to Casshern.

[Marcus]

The castle belonged to Europa. There are Europa insignias all throughout the castle. Since they lost the war it has been abandoned and whoever was ruling the castle (sitting on the throne) has died. There were a number of military items left there such as military robots, swords and performance enhancing drugs which the neo-sapiens injected themselves with.

[eraidesigns]

Okay, well I believe I have found the answer to the lightning bolt hitting the vat and spurring the creation of the neohumans issue. According to the wikipedia article, Casshern was originally an anime series which had a very different and IMO very silly plot involving transforming dogs and super-girlfriends etc. In the anime series, the main antagonist is this robot which was created by Dr. Azuma to help people but was struck by lightning and went berserk in turn vowing to destroy humanity.

I reckon that the live action movie recreates some of the key parts of the anime's story while keeping with the movie's plot; hence, the lightning bolt that triggers the creation of the neohumans.

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We found family. How sweet it is. So, so sweet.

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Where I can download this movie online? Give me link.

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[Mick.]

Wow! What a film and very lengthy too!

My take on the lightning bolt is not too disimilar from Blake's - although because Time, Distance and Speed are all related I would say that the lightning bolt at the end (carrying the souls of all the dead) flying through space at the speed of light (or dare I say higher?), actually ended up back on Earth at the time of the beginning of the movie - thus the end of the film triggered the beginning < IF you have seen Donnie Darko you would have an idea of what I'm talking about. I will have to watch the ending to see if the place where the lightning strikes resembles the beginning though to be sure.

EDIT: Ok I watched the ending again, and the lightning bolt that hits the planet at the end is not the same as the one at the beginning - so revising my theory; that if it was the Earth then the lightning bolt would represent the spark of life that eventually lead to the existence of humans and so on [revising that, I seen that there was life already on the planet, ie plants so a resting ground for the souls of the dead perhaps?]. OR if it is another planet (which it appears to be) then, again it could be a spark of life, giving a Yin and Yang meaning that there is a natural order that when one person dies another is born - in this case an entire planet.

I would not say that the lightning bolt carried "angry energy" but that the anger was accumulated through the experiences that the neo-sapiens had been put through, you might remember that the one of a simple nature had a deep attachment to Luna.

Also, I think the protagonist's girlfriend is called Luna because of her fair skin complexion, as white as the moon (Luna is Italian/Spanish for moon, French word is Lune)

I think that the King of the neo-sapiens did not have a vision because he had already lost everything, therefore he did not have any desire to live, whereas the others desired peace in the world of violence that they had endured until their deaths.

[Mick.]

I see what powerfortressofdoom-1-million means by his comment, although I have never played FF7; but I felt that this movie was a collection of influences built one on top of another.

Who can deny the Frankenstein influence? Especially with those references to lightning.

Samurai Jack - for futuristic setting and the robots and the way they keep blowing up.

Bleach/Dragonball (or any action anime with superstrong guys and energy/ki/chi/spirit power) - for the fight seen when Casshern takes on the robots.

I would type more, but I can't remember names - although if you can then just fill in the blank for then next paragraph.

The film also carries the same message as ---- which is that if life were lived more than once it would lose its value, such as at the end when Casshern's father shoots his girlfriend without hesitation, and then saying "Don't worry she can be brought back"

The Eastern Federation also has Russian Cyrillic letters shown throughout in the same way Romaji (Latin Alphabet) is used in Japan today - showing Japan's de-americanization and slavization in the future.

There is also the traditional element in the future setting, just like in Samurai Jack. However, whereas Samurai Jack is the symbolism of tradition, in Casshern the symbolism of tradition is the General's son and Dictator of the E.F.

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This movie is maded by real story.

[adrian]

I noticed that Naito also had the tattoo on his wrist, along with all the bodies in the sewer. His tattoo is shown during the scene when he is pointing his gun Dr. Azuma right before the lightning bolt collapses. The exact moment his tattoo is shown, he says, "The lies we tell! The lies we live to survive. Right, Doctor?" My theory on this is that the tattoo is a brand that only the people who live in zone seven have, which could lead to the idea that Naito abandoned his people to save himself. With Dr. Azuma bearing the same brand could mean that he too did the same thing before he ever met Midori. Only the people of zone seven were able to be revived(at least from what the movie showed) which would explain why Tetsuya was able to be revived, being the child of Dr. Azuma, and it would explain why the research never showed any positive results for anyone else.

[CNA Schools Neveda]

I am really interested in what you wrote here. This looks absolutely perfect. All these tinny details are made with lot of background knowledge.

[CNA Training]

Generally I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so, Excellent post!

[Empty]

I think I've found most of the answer I wanted 'cause of the comments on your review, which was really good, I must say so.
Only one thing's left unanswered: Does anybody recall the second lightning bolt? There was three of them, not only one at the beginning and one at the end.
Even though I must admit the second could be (almost certainly) linked to the first which is falling apart after Casshern's "teleportation" from the village to the neo-cells factory.
But still, this issue really interests me. I mean, it could be God or their "Casshern" deity anger towards humanity or something else, who knows. Maybe "god" wanted to help the scientist into his research, finding it amusing to watch humans redo his own work. It may even be a mistake, after "god's" lightning bolt hits the pool, its holy energy fill it with the components of life which may be in every kind of god's powers.

I know I might have gone too far but if someone know the answer or has a theory on it, I'll be glad to hear it even if it doesn't clear all my questions.

Thx in advance, and again, great review.

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