Quote:
Originally Posted by 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!  |
Its an adaptation of a great little manga and then anime called DOOMED MEGALOPOLIS...
Doomed megalopolis..jpg
It was one of the early official western anime releases. Back when we got one episode per tape and introduced a lot of people (me included) to japanese animation. Curiously the film seems to have come before the anime. The story is pretty solidly rooted in japanese folklore and myth and is fairly impenetrable for westerners. The manga was long enough that shorter movie length adaps like this made it even harder to grasp. Nontheless if you get the chance and you liked the film, seek out the anime series. Its pretty difficult to get hold of on dvd, I have the dubbed US release and that's out of print.