[troggi]

"Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis" 1987

WOW! State of the art visual effects from 1987 are a little "see through" today! Let's be fair to this film In 1987 I was still using a Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the IBM PCs were as user friendly as a hand feeding station at a rabid weasel sanctuary! The celebrated "Video Toaster" (a souped up Commodore Amiga), that created the computer effects for such series as "Babylon 5" was still a little ways off. The effects in "Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis" are pretty good with some half decent stop-motion rat demons in there too!

You can probably tell already that I quite enjoyed this film, it has EVERYTHING, including the kitchen sink! Demons, ghosts, dark magic, light magic, pneumatic robots all in 1900-1930s Tokyo! The plot is a little difficult to follow, especially for someone as ill-tutored in Japanese custom and culture as me, but I can forgive that just for it existing, it's that much fun! My only real quibble is that it looks as though it had been lifted straight from a 1987 VHS. In my now famous marking system it gets 17/10 and when I get a copy with a better PQ it'll get at least 2 points more!