BLOOD WORK: May 2021

Thursday, May 13, 2021

SUSPENDED ANIMATION: HIGH-RISE INVASION (2021)

HIGH-RISE INVASION

I first saw the above image on Bloody Disgusting one day and discovered a new horror anime was coming to Netflix. After watching a trailer I was willing to give this a try. There isn't enough quality horror anime out there (or maybe I haven't seen enough of what's out there). I know there's a bunch of horror anime out there that I haven't seen, many that I should see, so I couldn't pass up a new opportunity.

Based off of a manga by the same name, High-Rise Invasion sees a group of random people waking from a strange sleep to find themselves trapped in a series of high-rise buildings. Trapped on the upper floors, they can't reach the bottom to escape. They can travel between buildings via suspension bridges from rooftop to rooftop. Stalking these rooftops are people in white masks, armed with an array of weapons, their sole purpose to kill or scare others into committing suicide.

Yuri wakes to find herself trapped in this horrifying parallel reality. Seeing a helicopter land on the roof, she races to the top floor to escape. Her phone rings and her brother is on the other line. He says he's trapped in this high-rise hell too. Yuri can't leave without her brother. With masked maniacs descending all around her, Yuri battles her way through this "kill or be killed" world.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

First off, the animation is beautiful. Forget that cheap-looking juvenile CGI animation from the Netflix GHOST IN THE SHELL or the gawd-aweful 2016 BERSERK series (we won't mention the hideous Netflix SHE-RA animation either). High-Rise Invasion even makes the quality animation of CASTLEVANIA look slightly anemic by comparison. The design and look of the show is very classic and straight forward, meaning there isn't a unique look or distinctive design. The animation here is timeless, not a current fad or a signature artistic style. This anime looks gorgeous now and it will look just as gorgeous 20 years from now. This is how Ghost In The Shell 2045 should've looked.

Blood and guts. This show is full of brutal scenes, blood, and violence, everything a growing boy needs. This show does a great job of building tension and coming up with creative ways to deal with situations. I'm not familiar with the manga this is based off of, but I was getting a "PURGE" vibe from the images and the trailer. There's a set of rules to this world too which also channel Purge esthetics. All of it works to create a fun and thrilling story.

What really makes the show stick are the characters. Yuri is fun, cute, charismatic, and badass all at once. She embodies some of the anime girl troupes that we're all familiar with, but then breaks that mold by becoming something else. She becomes a great hero for the show. Her brother Rika is also a cool and capable character that could easily lead this show on his own had he been cast as the lead. The supporting cast too is full of great characters like Mayuko, Sniper Mask, and Kuon. Then, of course, there are a scary cast of "Masks" who embody the core esthetics of 80's slashers. I love a good slasher flick, especially ones with unique masked killers, and High-Rise Invasion has those in spades.

If there is one thing I'd have to complain about it would be the short 12 episode season. I WANT MORE! An awful lot of story was packed into this small season, they could've even expanded quite a bit on everything here (which I would've loved to have seen), but if it would've resulted in a cheaper looking final product then they made the right choice. I guess if I want more I'll have to start reading the manga.

THE VERDICT

Beautiful and amazing animation coupled with an exciting, mostly fresh, story and some charismatic and likable characters, and you've got High-Rise Invasion. The horror elements brought me in and I stayed for the story and characters. And the tension when a Mask shows up never gets old. I couldn't get enough of this show. I had to pace myself while watching to make the enjoyment last. Instead of binge watching I decided to watch one episode a day. It was painful but it did prolong this excellent show a bit.

Overall Ranking: 8 out of 10

Nude-O-Meter: 3 out of 10 (it's almost as if there's not any nudity though as no vital bits actually show)

I eagerly await a second season, assuming it did well enough to have a second season commissioned.

For more of my thoughts on anime, check out these other posts below!

DEVILMAN: CRYBABY (2018)

CYBORG 009 VS DEVILMAN (2015)

CASTLEVANIA SEASON ONE (2017)

CASTLEVANIA SEASON TWO (2018)

CASTLEVANIA SEASON THREE (2020)

BLOOD REIGN: CURSE OF THE YOMA (1989)

BLOOD C (2011)

IRIA: ZEIRAM THE ANIMATION (1994)

MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 0079 (1979)

VAMPIRE HUNTER D (1985)

GODZILLA: PLANET EATER (2018)

GODZILLA: CITY ON THE EDGE OF BATTLE (2018)

GODZILLA: PLANET OF THE MONSTERS (2017)

Sunday, May 9, 2021

SILVER TONGUED SILVER SCREEN: MORTAL KOMBAT (2021)

MORTAL KOMBAT

"Test your might"

The next big Warner Bros. movie has hit theaters and HBO Max.

Mortal Kombat!!!!

We here at Blood Work love video games. We especially adore fighting games. Hollywood's track record with adapting video games into films is... not very good. You can count the good video game adaptations on one hand: Sonic, Detective Pikachu, Rampage, and Netflix's Castlevania series. And let's not forget the first Silent Hill movie. The number of mediocre to failed video game based films, on the other hand, is countless. 1995's Mortal Kombat isn't the worst video game movie by far, but it also hasn't held up as well as we'd like. And Mortal Kombat: Annihilation from 1997 less so.

So where does this new reboot fall on the spectrum? First we should be clear: the Mortal Kombat franchise is awesome and full of great and amazing characters. Personally though we've always been more partial to the likes of Capcom and SNK properties. Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, Darkstalkers, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, Guilty Gear, Soul Calibur, these are our fighting games we love. It should be noted that among the fighting games we love, their film adaptations (aside from some anime features) have been atrocious. In this we concede Mortal Kombat's superiority, MK has the better films by far. All this is to say that while we appreciate Mortal Kombat we are not very attached to the property.

Back to the 2021 movie, we liked it!

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

We greatly appreciated how hard this movie leaned into the R rating. F-bombs and gore galore! The only thing the movie was missing was some quality nudity and it would've fully embraced the R rating. Mortal Kombat differentiated itself from the fighting game pack by leaning hard into the blood and gore, the infamous FATALITIES garnering much attention. In this respect, MK21 delivers on a franchise staple.

Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero and Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion were by far the standout actors and characters of the film. We will watch anything with Joe Taslim in it and he doesn't disappoint here. Likewise Hiroyuki Sanada, during the opening sequence, kicks so much ass and is criminally underused through the rest of the film. The climax of the film being these two facing off once more is perfect. It's a shame they didn't have a mid movie rematch before then.

Kano was hilarious and a show stealer. Sonya was awesome. And Jax was great although underused as well. I thought Kung Lao was pretty cool too while Liu Kang felt a bit underwhelming. Raiden too seemed a little underused too.

Beyond this, the character selection seems a bit strange for the movie. There's a mix of popular and relatively obscure characters on display in the film, with many favorites missing. But then there are some pretty big deaths here, which has us thinking that the character select here was more deliberate, to kill off some characters in brutal fashion without burning through the core cast of MK heroes and villains. And then when you factor in a trilogy mindset in the construction of this film (putting the cart before the horse, maybe?) more film choices here make sense.

There were some things that bothered me though. The lack of showing the actual tournament for example was disappointing, but this factor's into the trilogy mindset though. Lewis Tan's character, Cole, also didn't have a fair shake. They built him up to be the great hope of Earth's heroes and didn't give him the epic fight scenes he deserved.

What really hurt this movie was that we watched it on HBO Max instead of the theater. The last movie we watched was Godzilla Vs Kong and we watched that twice in a theater. It was amazing (even if certain aspects of the movie weren't). Seeing a theatrical movie at home just doesn't have the same effect (this coming from us who love our home video collection). That's us saying that a streaming premiere just doesn't do a film like this justice. We do hope the theater industry survives and bounces back.

THE VERDICT

Mortal Kombat was bloody good fun but falls just shy of greatness. The trilogy mindset, while architecturally sound, doesn't benefit the experience here. Instead it just leaves a lot of potential languishing on the table. If the filmmakers get the chance to do a sequel and, the arcade gods will it so, that the trilogy can be fully realized, this first film will be better for it. As it stands, it feels a little like the first Captain America in that it was satisfactory but its longevity relies heavily upon what comes next.

All this is to say, this movie feels like the first act of a story rather than a whole story of its own. It's just a stepping stone to get to the big payoff, which may or may not come depending on how well the box office return is. And given we're still living in a pandemic ridden world, the box office chances are still slim (although hope remains, Godzilla Vs Kong showing that a big box office haul is still possible).

Overall Ranking: 6 out of 10