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Live-Action Anime: Casshern

Posted by michael on from the first-person-slicer dept.

Silverhammer writes "Apple Japan is hosting the trailer (Quicktime required, of course) for an upcoming movie called simply CASSHERN. There have been many attempts at so-called 'live-action anime', but this is possibly the most impressive attempt I've ever seen. Part 'Final Fantasy', part 'Brazil', with CG and green screen work that puts even 'LoTR' to shame. (Hat tip: Penny Arcade)."

16 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Questions about CASSHERN... by LinuxParanoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't follow anime that closely nor Japanese cinema at all, but I watched the trailer and the eye candy looked pretty good. I have a bunch of questions:
    1) Will there be a release in English?
    2) If so, will it have subtitles or overdubbing?
    3) Where was the movie shot?
    4) The actors and target audience are clearly Japanese. Was the rest of the production (directing, crew, special effects) all done by Japanese?
    5) Most of the writing in the trailer was Japanese (no surprise), but the title (CASSHERN) was in English. Is there any significance to this? Is this a common practice? Does the movie have both a Japanese and an English title? (I couldn't tell on the Japanese side.)
    6) The production values and trailer looked pretty darn good (and I didn't even understand what was going on...) Is there any particular reason why Japanese movies don't get released in the US the way US movies get released in Japan? Don't most US movies get released in Japanese when shown in Japan?

    --LP

    1. Re:Questions about CASSHERN... by Yorrike · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Most of the writing in the trailer was Japanese (no surprise), but the title (CASSHERN) was in English. Is there any significance to this? Is this a common practice?

      It's a common marketing ploy with Japanese products, marketed to Japanese people. As odd as it may sound, English writing and Roman characters are seen as exotic and unusual in Japan (or so it seems from what I've read regarding Japanese culture over the years).

      --

      Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?

    2. Re:Questions about CASSHERN... by ziggy_zero · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm going to use the movie "Battle Royale" as a guide for some of your questions because these two movies are similar in many respects.

      BR didn't get released theatrically released in the US, most likely because....well I don't think most Americans would take to it at all. And I'm not trying to insult Americans (hell, I am one), but our cultures are very different. Anime is also not usually screened in the US. I don't think the Cowboy Bebop movie did very well when it came here. This movie is based on an anime, and also looks like it will have a lot of cultural stuff that we just wouldn't get.

      Battle Royale has yet to see an American DVD release even though it came out years ago and it was a big hit in Japan. I'm stuck with a bootleg Korean DVD with poor subtitles and an inability to play the non-"director's cut" version, which has a bunch of silly scenes added.

      So, to sum up, CASSHERN will probably never be released in the US (theatrically or on DVD), but eventually a version with English subtitles (probably not very good) will surface within the next few months/years and you will probably need to buy a bootleg to see it.

      --
      I belong to the ______ generation.
  2. weta... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Call me a heretic, but I didn't think the work at Weta was that awesome in terms of the net effect. Gollum still looked a little strange to me, and Treebeard and the ents were still pretty fakey. It was a heck of a lot of work I'm sure and kudos to them for all of it, but there's plenty of room for improvement imho. Maybe it's just me, but after watching the Two Towers extended edition DVD showing how they did all the various effects, I came away impressed by some of the artistry, impressed by the amount of work, but unimpressed by the technology employed. It was all an extension of stuff that's been around for 5-10 years.

    (I don't have really any perspective on LOTR vs CASSHERN one way or the other.)

    1. Re:weta... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      3D textures for gollum? A) Intergraph PC 3D graphics cards were doing 3D texturing back in 1996ish. B) 3D textures are useful for showing the internals of a 3D object. What was the advantage of using 3D textures over 2D surface textures suffice for Gollum? Even the BRDF skin modeling I worked with a teeny bit back in 1994 used 2D textures and alpha channels.

      I'm not clear on what Massive does that wasn't done in Jurassic Park 1 with swarms of dinosaurs shot from a distance. I recognize that Massive is more sophisticated in certain ways but, like I said, a logical extension of stuff that's been around for 5+ years.

      Gollum and the ents still looked fake. I could pretend they weren't but it wasn't real to me. I dunno how to fix it, but my standards are still higher than what's being done today.

    2. Re:weta... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hrm, I didn't actually think our eye was that sensitive to color differences beyond 8-bit gradations per-channel (although clearly the eye is way more sensitive in some channels like green if I recall correctly), so your claim that it senses 128-bit difference is sort of a surprise to me. Do you have a source for that 128-bit assertion? That's way higher than anything I ever heard and I did study this stuff at one point; I don't claim to be an expert though.

      I've privately long-considered the intensity and luminosity to be more fundamental limitations on film (or computer screens). Light shining off things just doesn't glare as much on film as in real life. I suspect that's a much bigger difference between film and real-life than the bits-of-color issues you're describing.

  3. YESS, that's called Kyashan in Italy by godIsaDJ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Guys, that's gonna be great. The original anime was shown on italian tv about 10/15 years ago. It was called Kyashan which is phonetically pretty much the same. So, the story is that androids go mad and try to conquer the world (and pretty much succeed) the son of a brilling scientist which collaborated constructing the androids becomes a cyborg to save the world... There are a girl and a dog-cyborg that go around fighting with him... It sounds cheesy but the anime was *great* to say the least. Brilliant. And the trailer makes me hope for the best!!! Man what a news!!! I can't wait!!

  4. Volcano High by SirFlakey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If it's live action anime you want - that one is a musty watch as well. There is some pretty slick CG work in there. If you watch the specials you'll see some of the really hard (and painful) work the actors had to go though!

    IMDB Link

    --
    Jon - TheSpork
  5. Pronunciation by crashfrog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anybody have the pronunciation for this? Is it "cass-hern" or "cas-shern"? I caught the Japanese narration saying "ca-sher-no" but I was wondering if anybody had it in English.

    --
    I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
    If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
  6. Re:BitTorrent by HeghmoH · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Apple has more bandwidth than God. I think they'll be ok.

    --
    Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
  7. Re:Great, now i gotta learn Japanese by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Umm... actually only idiot fanboys/girls would not call Pokemon anime. Like 90% of anime in Japan is over commercialized crap. Usually only the best (or the most likely to sell a lot of toys quickly to children) filters over to North America.

  8. Yay.. by mrdavidk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd watch it, subed or dubed :). Anyone see the Final Fantasy VII Advent Children trailer?( http://www.square-enix.co.jp/dvd/ff7ac/)
    The Wachowski brothers were very much anime-motivated in that movie...
    Yep, but no one in the mass media seem to coment on this. I'm so sick of hearing "Matrix inspired" or "Matrix like", I know the Matrix pulled out some great effects but a good portion of them were seen on Anime before it!
    No other anime is better than Big O. Simply for the fact of the intro.
    I'm not that much of a fan of the intro, kind of chessy IMO ;). Bebop has a great into though, but terribly overplayed (the series).

  9. Eye opener by AmVidia+HQ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Can't read the Jap, but from other comments I gather it's a post fallout world with androids who want to conquer the world, and a cyborg who helped create the androids wanting to save it.

    Just watch the trailer, the eery graphics is SUPERB. The interweaving of live action into anime is intriguing, and from just the trailer I can already get a sense of the style and mood of the movie, with a strong feel of Dune (future tech + medieval setting).

    I will certainly want to see this in theater, if it's not Japan only. I'm in Canada.

    PS. The trailer seems to be surviving ./ pretty well, i'll post a BitTorrent link if it goes (or anyone can on the site in my sig, post it under the Releases)

    --
    VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
  10. hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    does anyone find image #12 from the Download/Gallery familar?

    I thought they took a picture of Mont St-Michel (France) and paint over it....

  11. Not so Anime by JabberWokky · · Score: 3, Interesting
    While I can cite many recent examples of American movies that have this look and feel to them (Dark City being a popular example, the works of Tim Burton being another, going back to ), the hypercontrolled fantasy set environment goes way way back.

    Ridley Scott is a good example of a director who does this, many French works (City of Lost Children had some recognition in the states), all the way back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

    Tossed in among all the HK fantasy/SF cinema, this looks like just another film. A high budget one, one that looks like it could be really good, but not some sort of exceptional breakthrough that people have been making it out to be of late.

    --
    Evan

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  12. Re:And here is The Matrix vs Darkcity by blincoln · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What is this...object oriented movie making?

    I don't think the Wachowskis tried to hide that they borrowed some of the visual style from Dark City - in fact, the rooftop that Trinity runs over at the beginning of The Matrix was a set *from* Dark City.

    The underlying similarity, though, is because both are based on Gnosticism. Neo and John Murdoch are both the gnostic archetype of the person who realizes the true nature of the world, and so is able to control it. In one of the Matrix sequels, there is even a reference to a ship called the Gnosis.

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman