Hey, you!
Now, what are you doing watching "Wicked City," the Anime' from director Yoshiaki Kawajiri, one of the most notorious names in the genre? (You're watching "Wicked City" because it was one of the first and most successful, not to mention controversial, Anime' flicks to land in the United States.)
I first saw a preview for "Wicked City" on the VHS for "Vampire Hunter D" (1985) and damn it, the thing didn't even mention the name of the movie, just some really cool action scenes. It took me somewhere between two nights of rigorous searching on the Internet, here at IMDb, Amazon.com and abroad, but alas somewhere after about 32 hours, I finally found its name, and the next day went to the store to pick it up.
First things first, "Wicked City" is not for the faint of heart, much less anyone under the age of 17. An outstanding hybrid of stylish eroticism, science fiction, horror, romance and detective-noir, this film is certainly not to be messed with. It has its fair share of graphic violence, plentiful sexuality and nudity, and awesome "morphing" sequences that might make Rob Bottin cringe with envy. (And believe me, his work on 1982's "The Thing" is a pretty tough act to follow, in any medium.)
Based on the novel written by Hideyuki Kikuchi, "Wicked City" is set at the end of the 20th century and Taki Renzaburo, an electronics salesman by day and "Black Guard" by night, is assigned to protect an ambassador from the "Black World," Guiseppe Mayart, a perverted, horny old gnome, until the man can sign a peace treaty the night after. Every 500 hundred years, a peace treaty between Earth and the Black World is renewed. Taki is given a partner, a beautiful Black Guard from the other side named Makie.
However, there is something unique about this treaty, and a band of shape-shifting mutants from the Black World, called "Radicals," are determined to kill Mayart and prevent the signing of the treaty. As fate would have it, the pairing of Taki and Makie is eventually revealed to have much greater significance than just protecting Mayart, and this is later given a proper time and place to make itself known.
Urban Vision will definitely have a tough time convincing me they can do better than this. I've never seen animation that is this daredevil in its skill, action, violence, shape-shifting scenes and other disturbing imagery, and sexual provocations. Yes, there is a lot of sex in this picture (just like Kawajiri's later 1993 epic "Ninja Scroll"), but the sex, like nearly everything else in "Wicked City," has an underlying subtext. Perhaps it's just to frighten the male viewers (Taki's near-fatal sexual encounter with a shape-changing female who I call "Spider-Woman" left me repulsed with fear and disgust, especially with her Venus flytrap you-know-what that allows for easy male castration). In "Wicked City," sex has pleasurable purposes, as well as a means of romantic expression and as a weapon, such as oral sodomy or rape. But more seriously, though, Taki and Makie eventually do fall in love, in a beautiful and surreal sequence, which shows that sexuality's importance isn't for T + A, but for procreation, the birth of a new beginning for both worlds.
"Wicked City" is Anime' at some of its most subversive and intelligent. While still certainly not for children, it is a daring exercise in the superiority of Japanese animation over American animated features. It goes places American animation can't (or won't). I always use this when defending the superiority of Anime' over American animated features.
10/10
Now, what are you doing watching "Wicked City," the Anime' from director Yoshiaki Kawajiri, one of the most notorious names in the genre? (You're watching "Wicked City" because it was one of the first and most successful, not to mention controversial, Anime' flicks to land in the United States.)
I first saw a preview for "Wicked City" on the VHS for "Vampire Hunter D" (1985) and damn it, the thing didn't even mention the name of the movie, just some really cool action scenes. It took me somewhere between two nights of rigorous searching on the Internet, here at IMDb, Amazon.com and abroad, but alas somewhere after about 32 hours, I finally found its name, and the next day went to the store to pick it up.
First things first, "Wicked City" is not for the faint of heart, much less anyone under the age of 17. An outstanding hybrid of stylish eroticism, science fiction, horror, romance and detective-noir, this film is certainly not to be messed with. It has its fair share of graphic violence, plentiful sexuality and nudity, and awesome "morphing" sequences that might make Rob Bottin cringe with envy. (And believe me, his work on 1982's "The Thing" is a pretty tough act to follow, in any medium.)
Based on the novel written by Hideyuki Kikuchi, "Wicked City" is set at the end of the 20th century and Taki Renzaburo, an electronics salesman by day and "Black Guard" by night, is assigned to protect an ambassador from the "Black World," Guiseppe Mayart, a perverted, horny old gnome, until the man can sign a peace treaty the night after. Every 500 hundred years, a peace treaty between Earth and the Black World is renewed. Taki is given a partner, a beautiful Black Guard from the other side named Makie.
However, there is something unique about this treaty, and a band of shape-shifting mutants from the Black World, called "Radicals," are determined to kill Mayart and prevent the signing of the treaty. As fate would have it, the pairing of Taki and Makie is eventually revealed to have much greater significance than just protecting Mayart, and this is later given a proper time and place to make itself known.
Urban Vision will definitely have a tough time convincing me they can do better than this. I've never seen animation that is this daredevil in its skill, action, violence, shape-shifting scenes and other disturbing imagery, and sexual provocations. Yes, there is a lot of sex in this picture (just like Kawajiri's later 1993 epic "Ninja Scroll"), but the sex, like nearly everything else in "Wicked City," has an underlying subtext. Perhaps it's just to frighten the male viewers (Taki's near-fatal sexual encounter with a shape-changing female who I call "Spider-Woman" left me repulsed with fear and disgust, especially with her Venus flytrap you-know-what that allows for easy male castration). In "Wicked City," sex has pleasurable purposes, as well as a means of romantic expression and as a weapon, such as oral sodomy or rape. But more seriously, though, Taki and Makie eventually do fall in love, in a beautiful and surreal sequence, which shows that sexuality's importance isn't for T + A, but for procreation, the birth of a new beginning for both worlds.
"Wicked City" is Anime' at some of its most subversive and intelligent. While still certainly not for children, it is a daring exercise in the superiority of Japanese animation over American animated features. It goes places American animation can't (or won't). I always use this when defending the superiority of Anime' over American animated features.
10/10