Takashi Miike brings to life a classic animated Japanese television show in YATTERMAN
YATTERMAN (Takashi Miike, 2009)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Friday, June 25, 3:00
Friday, July 2, 1:00
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.subwaycinema.com
Although Japanese director Takashi Miike is best known for such gruesome, violent, cutting-edge films as AUDITION, ICHI THE KILLER, the DEAD OR ALIVE trilogy, and GOZU, he has recently been showing off his more childlike side in such kid-friendly fare as THE GREAT YOKAI WAR and ZEBRAMAN. Now Miike has focused his attention on the popular late 1970s animated television show YATTERMAN, turning it into a goofy live-action flick filled with bright, bold colors, a fairly simplistic plot, and very cute machinery. On the side of good is Gan-chan (Japanese teen idol Sho Sakurai) and Ai-chan (Saki Fukuda), while rat-faced Doronjo (Kyoko Fukada), pig-nosed Tonzura (Kendo Kobayashi), and sexy leader Boyakki (Katsuhisa Namase) form the nasty, rather hapless villainous trio after the giant mecha-hero Yatterman and the four pieces of the valuable Skull Stone. Nothing short of the fate of the world is in jeopardy as the increasingly silly bad guys battle our beautiful, innocent heroes. Much of YATTERMAN is discombobulated and hard to follow, and the production values at times are more akin to Saturday-morning television than a trip to the movies, but it has such a charming sense of humor and playfulness that you might just overlook many of its needless excesses.