I mentioned they were making a live action Lupin the Third the other day, and now we have the trailer. The gang is all here for this one, From Fujiko Mine and Daisuke Jigen to Inspector Koichi Zenigata. This will be in theaters in Japan on August 30th, I have not yet heard a release date for North America.
The movie worth noting this week is Earth to Echo, about a group of kids who finds an alien who needs their help. This one comes through Disney, and does look like it will be fun. Be sure to share it with your children, it looks like a full family story.
Once Upon a Time in Vietnam is a surprising film, because even though Japan, China, and India all have a long history of making epic fantasy adventures, this is the first such film produced in Vietnam that I am aware of. I look forward to seeing how they did, because new sources of epic fantasy are always appreciated. Vamperifica is the story of the reincarnation of a vampire king in the body of a clueless kid, and it definitely looks like a horror/comedy to me. I have been trying to figure out just how you can reincarnate a soulless creature like a vampire, but I suppose that is what suspension of disbelief is for.
In TV Helix: Season 1 is about a team of CDC doctors who travel to a research facility in the arctic, they think to investigate a disease outbreak. Instead they end up fighting for their lives with the survival of humanity at stake, on a much bigger playing field than they thought they were getting into.
In Anime we have a couple of very strong pieces this time. A Certain Scientific Railgun S: Part One is the first half of the sequel to season 1. Mikoto discovers the stories of powerful talents being cloned are true when she runs into herself, and learns that her clones are being brutally murdered in an effort to steal their power. She vows to save her copies and destroy the project, but she will need to call in help to pull this one off. The new season is every bit as good as the original was, I have been enjoying it on the Funimation channel. Equally well done although in a completely different style, Devil Survivor 2: Complete Collection starts with various protagonists getting Death Videos on their smart phones, and watch news reports of how they died… in the next ten minutes. If they manage to figure out a way to avoid getting killed, they join the ranks of the Devil Summoners and get a demon on their cell to call up when they go under attack. The more times they avoid death, the more demons they get. Some are powerful, some are not; but the world is under attack by some very nasty creatures from another dimension, so they will need every one of them to make it through. The entire story takes place across the span of 8 days, which seems a pretty compressed timeline.
Also this week, Shakugan no Shana: Season Two is being released in a S.A.V.E. edition, which means you can pick up all 24 episodes for around $20 or so.
They pushed the release date for Jupiter Ascending all the way back to 2015, but in compensation they have released a new extended trailer for the film. Apparently most of the reason for the delay is to give the Wachowskis time to tweak the film and process a bunch of special effects, but if they can make it all look as good as these scenes it might be worth the wait.
The latest live action version of Lupin The 3rd is going to be hitting the big screen in Tokyo on August 30th, and I can’t wait to see it released in the US. The mastermind who created most of the original season was Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli, and the rest of season 1 was built by Masaaki Ōsumi. But they were building on strong foundations, taking the original 1905 character Arsène Lupin created by the brilliant French author Maurice Leblanc. Maurice’s Lupin was a perfect match for Doyle’s Sherlock, and the two contemporaries shared a rather large audience between them. When the 1971 TV series kicked off it was his grandson Lupin 3rd who incorporated all the James Bond elements and dragged the show into modern times. If you are not already a fan of this program, now is the time to learn all about it.
Put together by the folks who created the Coraline and ParaNorman animations, The Boxtrolls looks like it will be a lot of fun. The film stars Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, which all by itself is enough to put it on my must see list. It is based on the book Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow, purportedly a children’s book but a fine example of Fantasy as well. Since it is volume 1 of The Ratbridge Chronicles (the fictional town it takes place in, based on the real town Trowbridge in Wiltshire), perhaps there will be more of these down the road. It should be hitting the big screen in September.