In the future, the Greater Asian Empire has waged a war against Europe & won, although the fighting continues. Dr. Azuma’s wife is terminally ill, so rather than spend what little time she has together, he spends all his efforts trying to find a cure. He is working in Neocell research, which essentially involves growing spare body parts to replace diseased or missing parts. His son Tetsuya goes off to fight in the war against his father’s wishes, but is killed. As his body arrives back at Azuma’s laboratory, a weird malfunction & electrical storm causes the body parts to fuse together & create a new race of super-humans. Most are killed in the fracas, but a small group escapes to the wilderness & swears revenge upon humanity, aided by an army of robots. Meanwhile, Azuma has used the peculiar conditions in his lab to revive his son, & Tetsuya is reborn with super-strength, a jet-packed suit & stylish helmet - the last hope for humankind.

A live action version of the 70s Japanime, Casshern uses a startling & extremely attractive visual style to stay true to its roots & the highly individual results are almost a half-way between stylised anime & a traditional live-action movie. Let’s get this out of the way immediately – Casshern is one of the most stunningly beautiful films you are ever likely to see. Some magnificently grungy industrial production design calls to mind such diverse influences as Eraserhead & City of Lost Children, & the physical sets are expertly blended with matt & CGI backdrops, calling the likes of St Johns Wort to mind. The use of colour is highly effective too, with some scenes almost white, almost Bava-esque use of bright colours, & some highly effective scenes in a grainy black & white. This makes of an interesting juxtaposition of stylish elements, & the effect as one scene cuts to the next is startling.
The film makes no efforts to be “realistic” & its anime look is one of its chief draws, extended through to the magnificent action sequences which I can honestly say are like no live-action movie I’ve ever seen before. They come from the school of short-and-sweet, so (unlike the film) they never outstay their welcome & each sequence has a unique look, & they use visual tricks more familiar from anime. Combined with an excellent use of music (showcasing both classical & rock influences), Casshern is a five-course banquet for the eyes & the ears, mixing haunting languidity with astonishing moments of vigorous excitement & tremendous momentum.

The film starts off quite slowly, building up an off-kilter atmosphere & taking care to set up its core group of characters, their relationships, & its key narrative concerns. It’s in the sequence when the mutant race is created that the film sparks into life & the way the film then builds through to around the half-way point is very well executed. There are some fine action highlights, culminating in a stunning sequence when Tetsuya takes on seemingly the entire robot army in one go. It was around this point in the film that I was heard to mutter “No fucking way!”, an effect not too many films can claim. Here the film is promising to build up to a full-on war between Tetsuya and the humans, & the mutants and their robots, & a furious action climax between Tetsuya & the leader of the mutants. With its sights on a gloriously epic scale & jaw-dropping visuals, Casshern was for a time heading right for a full 5 skulls.

So what went wrong? Well, it’s all to do with the disappointing final hour. Instead of being a simple, glorious action movie, Casshern desperately wants to also be a serious film, filled with strong ideas & messages about war, terrorism, pollution, & all that kind of stuff. Which in itself is actually a positive attribute, but instead giving these thoughts subtly, the film uses sledgehammer tactics & spells its thoughts out, becoming rather repetitive. With lots of forced (but impassioned speeches) trying to make the point by dialogue rather than visuals, action confined mostly to CG-work, & an anti-war message spelt out over & over again, Casshern winds up as an exercise in clock-watching as it creeps to around 2¼ hours. The final hour could have been about half as long without really losing too much & the film would have been much stronger as a result. As it is, by the end, with the inflated sense of it’s own self-importance & lack of subtlety, I was overwhelmingly reminded of Battle Royale 2. The final hour is by no means a right-off however, since it does add some interesting plot development & thematic ideas whilst retaining the hallucinatory visual style. What it does do is take the sheen off what could have been a true modern classic. Still, even if it doesn’t live up to its initial promise, Casshern is still a film which is well worth seeing – and on as big a screen as possible – purely for its truly astonishing visual style, which is particularly remarkable given a budget rumoured to be around $8Million. It’s a shame that, despite its monetary limitations, the thing which lets the film down is the bit even a no-budget film can get right – the script. Casshern is a unique, visionary, mind-bending experience quite like no other. And yet while many things about the film are great, somehow greatness eludes the overall result.