Tag: John Cho

[EXPRESSO] Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop (Season One) (2021) | It’s time we blow

I was gonna make a full review, but then realized it wasn’t deserving of it.

Often you see people wondering who the hell is the target for live action adaptations of anime series that etched theirselves as classics, even more when it’s a series that become a hit even outside the anime circles, so you can’t really pull the snarky excuse “no normal people have seen the thing”.

In this case, i feel no one, because it’s incredible how they managed to create something that not only the fans will despise but newcomers will just find bad, and wonder why the hell people liked Cowboy Bebop to begin with.

An adaptation of an anime that should actually work better than most in live action, but manages to be a genuine complete wreck.

It’s also a live action adaptation made by and for people that scoff at anime, because that sentiment it’s made pretty much manifest by the many changes made to excuse, justify or alter many elements and expand on stuff regardless if it makes sense or if it’s good.

This was always gonna be different from the original, but this is such a witless, soulless, boring, badly paced and barely recognizable adaptation that fundamentally misunderstands the material and it’s willing do any random garbage with it, hypocritically treating the original as gospel but without really respecting it, or even understanding it, not really caring too much to anyway.

The fairly cheap CG it sparely uses to remember you it’s technically set in space doesn’t help. I seriously hope the budget for the One Piece live action they’re also working is higher than this.

The cast it’s quite good and does an unbelievable job, but they can’t save this pitiable, hackneyed, utterly ill-conceived trash from itself. Don’t even bother hatewatching it.

[EXPRESSO] The Grudge (2020) | The House That Kayako Built

The Grudge 2020 poster

(finally got another chance of seeing this in theathers)

Despite the mostly negative reception in the States and the frankly stupid idea of doing ANOTHER remake of Ju-On/The Grudge…. at least it had to just be better than the 2004 american remake, and that one had the same directors of the original. Then again i haven’t watched any of the sequels yet (american or japanese ones), but i can confirm this one is a “side-sequel” meant to connect with the 2004 american The Grudge.

And this is the main problem, as it wants to not disregard the previous american movies, but also doesn’t want to rework the premise to make sense in a completely different place and culture, or to make you forget that this a western remake of japanese movie. So there a willingly suicidal tendency to this one taking place in America with an american cast (plus John Cho), but still having to originate from Japan, with the curse basically using a character as a vessel to propagate itself in a small town, where a local sheriff investigates strange murders seemingly connected to a single house, all told in a non-linear fashion (as you’d expect) with the characters acting as “chapters-victims”.

It’s kinda tragic, because Nicolas Pesce manages to craft good characters and make you care about them, the drama is decent and the acting good, but when it comes to the horror parts, you’d wish the movie didn’t bother at all, even without throwing into the mix the trite j-horror movies cliches, or stuff that “has” to be here regardless, just because it’s The Grudge. The open ending doesn’t help.

Definitely a step up from the 2004 The Grudge, but please, let this type of “reboot/remakes of japanese movies” stay where it belongs. In the past.

americano-icona