Format: Region B Blu-ray, PAL, English Dialogue
Length: 92 minutes
Production Date: 2014
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
The planet Annwn was home to eight races of humanoid beings called Garm. When their creator Diarne left the planet, the races started waring with each other. Eventually over the years and years of wars, only three races remained; the Columbia who are specialist in aerial combat, the Briga who are specialists in land combat and the Kuntak who only survived as they provided their technical expertise to the Briga. As result of the battles, the land is wasteland for the most part and the air is polluted. Regardless the battles still continue on. In an ongoing battle, the commander of a Columbia cruiser notices that the Briga are chasing one of their own shuttles. It is suspicious enough to want capture of the shuttle by Columbia cruiser soliders who battle the Briga fighters as the chased shuttle eventually crashes. Inside is a Kuntak named Wydd (Lance Henriksen, Bishop in “Aliens”, Frank Black in “Millennium”), a Gula which is a kind of holy dog, and a Druid named Nascien (Summer Howell, Alice in “Curse of Chucky”). The Druids are supposedly an extinct race, yet here is one with a Kuntak. The Druids are said to hold massive amounts of data and are able to do millions of calculations. They are extremely useful as tactical weapons.
Wydd and the Druid are transported to the interrogation room by a solider named Khara (Melanie St-Pierre). Wydd thanks her predecessor who died in battle (Khara is a clone) while saving him from being captured by the Briga. He offers her a chance to be blessed by the Gula, however they arrive at their destination before she has a chance to be blessed. In the interrogation Wydd is more concerned with parting his philosophy on why the Garm races are fighting each other than answering the Columbia interrogator’s questions. They are initially dismissive of the fact that the person next to him is an actual Druid, however Wydd eventually convinces the head interrogator to give the Druid access to the main core (the Columbia cruiser’s main computer) in order to prove his claims. Despite some of the interrogators misgivings, Wydd links the Druid to the main core and within minutes the Druid causes an overflow of data into the main core, killing all of the interrogators and eventually the commander of the cruiser and anyone else linked into the main core.
A Briga squad, led by Skellig (Kevin Durand, who played Martin Keamy in “Lost” and Fred J. Dukes in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) storm the Columbia cruiser in order retrieve Wydd, the Druid and the Gula. They enter the sleep hive where Khara’s cloned sisters live and kill them all, retrieve Wydd, the Druid and the Gula and make their escape. Khara is devastated at the loss of her sisters and is determined to fight the escaping the Briga. The Columbia cruiser is sunk only moments after Khara leaves in her aircraft fighter. She follows the Briga craft and manages to damage it but is shot down herself by enemy fire. She survives and begins to walk across the barren landscape. She soon comes across the downed Briga craft and tracks the survivors for several days though some extreme terrain and weather. There at the edge of the Tork sea is the remaining Briga solider, Skellig, as well as Wydd, the Druid and the Gula beside a Briga tank.
Khara takes on Skellig in an attempt to kill him, however he gains the upper hand and throws her to the ground. But before he can deliver the fatal blow, the Gula jumps on Khara, blessing her. Wydd reminds Skellig that it would be foolish to kill someone who has been blessed by a Gula. The group forms an uneasy truce when Wydd reveals to Skellig that he has been directing him towards the land of the Druids and not the Briga command base. He tells both Khara and Skellig they they both cut off from their tribes and convinces them to join him on his quest to discover why the creator Diarne left Annwn. Despite the fact the pair do not have much Mana (essentially a life giving energy that both of them use), they agree to help him and set out on the Briga tank across the sea and wasteland. Khara soon finds she is questioning the war and everything around her, though Skellig doesn’t share her concerns.
In the last couple of years Mamoru Oshii has made a number of live action projects; the epic yet box office failure of the “Next Genertion -Patlabor-” mini film series and full length theatrical feature and “Tokyo Mukokuseki Shoujo (Nowhere Girl)” which looks like a genre B-movie exploitation piece. The third live action project was this film; “Garm Wars: The Last Druid”. Initially announced by Bandai Visual in October 1997 as "The Record of Garm War" or "G.R.M.", it was seemingly abandoned and never made. Most people assumed that his 2001 live action film, “Avalon” was made in response to that or was cobbled out of ideas from "The Record of Garm War". It came as a major surprise when out of nowhere in late 2012 it was re-announced as co-production between Bandai Namco, Production I.G and Canadian film company Lyla Films. The film eventually debuted at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2014 and got a small theatrical release in Canada the following year. Since then not a great deal has been heard about the film. Madman Entertainment’s Eastern Eye imprint released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in March this year and Animatsu (formerly Manga Entertainment) gave the film a UK BD release as well in the same month. The film still hasn’t received a Japanese release. That won’t be until the 20th of May this year.
The fact that no large film distributors or home video companies have picked up the film and its staggered release speaks volumes about it. Certainly it’s not as self-indulgent and frustrating as his very early live action work such as “The Red Spectacles” and “Talking Head”. Over the years he has developed as a live action director. This film is very much in the vein of his 2001 film “Avalon”. Its filled sepia toned landscapes, militaristic hardware and the usual Oshii philosophy. His infamous fetish for basset hounds is also here in big way. The first time we see one is right at the five minute mark. In the film the dog plays a major role as a Gula, a kind of holy animal which can bless people. Apart from showing several battle sequences with lots of militaristic machines, Oshii also concentrates on religious themes (another Oshii trait) most of which seems to use a lot of language and elements of Genesis in Wydd’s quest for his creator.
There are several aspects of the film which annoyed me. First and foremost is that film feels like it’s been pieced together from bits and pieces from previous Oshii films. Khara certainly feels more than a bit similar to Motoko Kusanagi, a scene in forest battle sequence feels like it’s a direct lift from “Patlabor 2 the movie” and the Briga tank seems awfully similar to the one in “Angel’s Egg”. I will admit that much of the photography and CG effects are utterly gorgeous at times. However some shots just looked too over processed and utterly unnatural. Some of the shots of a battle sequence inside a forest also looked quite unnatural, especially shots of a CG Skellig climbing over a giant creature. Wydd’s dialogue at times can seem rather waffling and pointless. You can almost see an expression of “what in god’s name am I saying?” on Lance Henriksen’s face. However I thought Melanie St-Pierre and Kevin Durand (the other two main actors in the film) were pretty good, despite a small portion of their dialogue coming off a bit silly. The script was co-written by Geoffrey Gunn who does a decent job, though his career seems to be in a rut, his CV credits him mostly writing scripts for terrible genre and exploitation films.
In the end, that’s what the film feels like; a B-movie. It's ambition more often than not outstrips it's budget. I sort of wonder if this film will end up in a line of those cheap DVDs you find in supermarkets and dollar stores, full of films that you’ve never heard of. Kenji Kawai yet again provides the score for another Oshii film. It’s mostly ethereal and otherworldly like a lot of his other work in Oshii films, but in some spots it does come off as bit generic which disappointed me. Most of the story and the designs are pretty damn good. What lets the film down though is that it can be a little hard to figure out what is going on. Oshii has created a fully realised world, however it requires a minute and a half info dump of non-stop dialogue before the credits to get people up to speed. The ending also felt a bit too abrupt and not well thought out, almost like an afterthought. Overall it wasn’t a bad film. There are some fantastic elements to the film. But like a lot of Oshii’s films, there’s too much navel gazing, too much self-indulgence. It’s certainly not a patch on “Avalon” which I think is his best live action film. 6 out of 10.
Remaining Backlog: 12 movies, three OVAs/specials, five TV series, also waiting for second parts for four shows to be released before viewing them.
No comments:
Post a Comment