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Godzilla Island Story Arc 4
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 4

April 15, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 4


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Godzilla Island Story Arc 3
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 3

April 10, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 3


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Godzilla Island Story Arc 2
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 2

April 7, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 2


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

The action is brought to life with toys. It is toymation at it’s finest, almost a decade before Robot Chicken. This allows for lots of monsters to be in lots of shows, lots of monster fights that we would never see otherwise, and lots of new versions of monsters. Plus the fact they had a deal with Bandai Toys to produce lots of exclusive toys for the show didn’t hurt. Come to think of it this is more of a blatant commercial for toys than the He-Man cartoon! But first let’s meet the human actors who will be appearing in most of the episodes:

Godzilla island story arc 1
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 1

April 5, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 1


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

The action is brought to life with toys. It is toymation at it’s finest, almost a decade before Robot Chicken. This allows for lots of monsters to be in lots of shows, lots of monster fights that we would never see otherwise, and lots of new versions of monsters. Plus the fact they had a deal with Bandai Toys to produce lots of exclusive toys for the show didn’t hurt. Come to think of it this is more of a blatant commercial for toys than the He-Man cartoon! But first let’s meet the human actors who will be appearing in most of the episodes:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

InBad, Movie Reviews

Mini Moni the Movie: The Great Cake Adventure! (Review)

February 3, 2008By

Mini Moni the Movie: The Great Cake Adventure!

aka Mini Moni ja Movie: Okashi na Daibouken!

2002
Directed by Shinji Higuchi

What in the name of all that is holy did I just watch?

This film is BONKERS! Members of the JPop group Mini Moni work at a bakery, and get turned into cartoon characters who have to fight an evil queen who hates cake. It’s full of trippy musical numbers, CGI weirdness, and more sugar than Frosted Flakes. And, like Frosted Flakes, it is part of a complete breakfast and is GRRRRRR-reat! First we’ll try to explain Mini Moni and JPop groups from the Hello! Project in general, and then jump into the film.

Mini Moni is a spinoff of Morning Musume, one of the biggest rotating lineup girl bands in Japan. Morning Musume is the flagship group of the Hello! Project, which is responsible for unleashing hordes of JPop singing super cute acting Japanese girls upon the nation. The juggernaut Hello! Project contributed most of the cast of Yo-Yo Girl Cop and contributes the entire cast here. Besides this being an excuse to explain the departure of one member of Mini Moni and the joining of another, the movie also introduces a new underage group named 4KIDS, the four members (Sugaya Risako, Hagiwara Mai, Suzuki Airi, Sudou Maasa)would later become members of Berryz Kobo and °C-ute. I am not making any of these band names up. (Sugaya and Sudou are now members of Berryz Koubou; Suzuki and Hagiwara are members of C-ute. )

Mari Yaguchi had an idea in 2000 for a subgroup whose members were 1.5 meters (4 ft 11 inches) in height or shorter, and they soon picked up Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji to join. The fourth member was Mika Todd, who is not native Japanese and was added to give them some international flavor. Mini Moni gained some notoriety for acting crazy during their media gigs, including grabbing people’s butts. They are also popular on the internet for their show being the source of the Dramatic Chipmunk image. The group eventually disbanded in 2004. A great loss to the music world, indeed.

Here, we have an adventure where Mini Moni is turned into little CGI girls, meet magic fairies, fight an evil queen who hates cake, befriend a refrigerator, and try to get back to their bakery in time for it’s second anniversary. So basically it is the Gone of the Wind of the JPop world. And it’s insane. Completely insane. Get a bucket, your brain will melt.

Future Cops
InBad, Movie Reviews

Future Cops (Review)

May 7, 2007By

Future Cops

aka Chao ji xue xiao ba wang

1993
Directed by Wong Jing

They’re cops from the future, FUTURE COPS! Actually, these future cops look a lot like characters from Street Fighter 2, because they are! This is a film loosely based on the manga adaptation of Street Fighter, and great liberties were taken with some of the characters and the story. Granted, this is a Wong Jing film (writer of Naked Weapon, director of My Kung Fu Sweetheart) so it will be pretty silly regardless. Street Fighter characters would return again in Wong Jing’s City Hunter, based on a different manga and starring Jackie Chan, who becomes Chun Li at one point there. For this encounter, I went to help from others to organize just who is who in the movie, as I was not a big player of Street Fighter games. Mortal Kombat, yes. So besides a vague knowledge that some creepy guys are obsessed with Chun Li and her high kicks in skirts, I knew little to nothing about the characters before beginning. Thanks to my girlfriend and Wikipedia, I was able to piece together most of the characters. Wong Jing took many liberties, including changing most of the names, flipping people from hero to villain and vice versa, and throwing in a few random things just because he’s Wong Jing. There is also a parade of famous Hong Kong celebrities, too many to list in this paragraph, we will deal with them in the lengthy Roll Call section. This would be like taking the Oceans 11 casts and putting them in a Super Smash Brothers movie. Future Cops is full of wild action, crazy stunts, and zany antics. And it is a whole lot of fun! So sit right back and prepare, this video game don’t need extra quarters or furious button smashing, it is on autopilot!

The Future Cops:

Broom Man (Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau) – Broom Man is the representation of the character Guile. Called Kwan-lo in the film, he is actually used as a broom in the movie, and he goes undercover as a teacher, wooing one of his students. Broom Man gets the music video that spontaneously happens in the middle of the film. Special weapon/move is Crescent Knife. Jacky Cheung has been a popular pop singer in Hong Kong for over twenty years now, a rare feat to last that long. One of the Four Heavenly Kings.
Ti Man (Andy Lau Tak-Wah) – Ti Man (or Ti-Men) is the representation of the character known as Vega in the US and Balrog in Japan. In the video game storyline he is a villain, but in the world of Future Cops he is a hero. Takes Chun Li on a date, and into a video game. His metal claws and mask makes him look like some sort of Wolverine/Phantom of the Opera hybrid. Nice trivia for Andy Lau: he used to wash my girlfriend’s mom’s hair when he was a young hairdresser before he became famous. One of the Four Heavenly Kings.
Ah Song (Simon Yam Tat-Wah) – Ah Song is the representation of the character known as Dhalsim. His people are called Sa Ah Men in the film. Has fantastic stretchy powers, and overacts with the Indian guru-ness. Simon Yam is usually an action star, and often costars with Chingmy Yau.
Lung (Aaron Kwok Fu-Sing) – Lung is the representation of the character known as Ryu, he stays behind in 2043 during the mission because the Captain married his sister. Therefore, he’s not in the film much. His Special weapon/move is marrying relatives of important people. Aaron Kwok was a big pop star in Hong Kong in the 90’s, his popularity had dwindled for much of the new millennium but seems to be hitting an upswing recently. There was a scandal about a “sex tape” that someone tried to blackmail him with, he won the case and the tape is sealed, supposedly it is just him touching a girl’s thighs, but you never know. One of the Four Heavenly Kings.

The villains (Future Rascals):

General (Ken Lo Wai-Kwong) – is the representation of the character known as M. Bison in the US and Vega in Japan. He is the super evil leader of the Future Rascals, and his trial is set to be judged by Yu Ti Hung, sparking the rest of the Future Rascals to go back into the past to find Yu Ti Hung and hypnotize him to let General go. Eventually escapes and goes back into the past as well, only to be defeated by the combined Future Cops team. Speaks without moving his mouth. special weapon/move is Flaming Bison. Is a robot, and is nuked. Ken Lo was in Rush Hour.
Kent (Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin) – is the representation of the character known as Ken, he is the most honorable of the Future Rascals. Armed with rejuvenate serum, and special weapon/move is Swaying Fist. Ekin Cheng is in most of the Young and Dangerous films, as well as Protégé de la Rose Noire.
Thai King (Billy Chow Bei-Lei) – is the representation of the character known as Sagat. Has an eyepatch and a goatee, which all evil people have. Billy Chow is probably best known here for Fist of Legend with Jet Li.
Toyoda (William Tuan Wai Lun) – is the representation of the character known as E. Honda. I hope you caught the automotive joke. He doesn’t say or do much in the film, probably because the actor isn’t a Hong Kong superstar. In fact, I’m not 100% positive I have the actor right!

The People of 1993:

Chun Li (Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching) – Chun Li is Tai Hung’s sister, who is popular with the boys, so many that they are constantly hounding her. Special move is the whirlwind kick. Chun Li is the character all the guys play, then hit pause while she does high kicks and rotate the camera trying to get a panty shot. Chingmy Yau was a big star in the early 1990s, as she dated Wong Jing she was in many of his films, most notably Naked Killer, but hasn’t done that much since she got married to a businessman.
Chun Tai Hung/Yu Ti Hung (Dicky Cheung Wai-Kin) – Age 28 but still in school. Will become the famous judge Yu Ti Hung that the Future Rascals are looking for. Befriends the Future Cops. Becomes Akuma (Gouki in Japan), but called Ng Hung by Toyoda, and says he is Ng Kwan Yu in response. I have no idea. Dicky Cheung was a low paid movie actor until he starred in a Journey to the West TV series as Monkey King and became super-famous. He then went to Taiwan to do more TV series, which he continues to this day both there and back in Hong Kong.
Choy-Nei (Charlie Yeung Choi-Nei) – The love interest for Tai Hung. A big star in Hong Kong in the mid-90s, Charlie Yeung was previously seen here in Task Force. She retired in 1997, but went back to show business in 2004, starring in New Police Story and other films.
Kei-On (Andy Hui Chi-On) – The local school bully, with giant hair. His huge lock of hair will destroy all those who oppose him. Joins up with the Future Rascals to betray Tai Hung, only to be betrayed himself. Andy Hui is a hardworking singer who is only recently being recognized for his pop styling. One of the New Four Heavenly Kings.
Siu-Wai (Winnie Lau Siu-Wai) – Also known as Crab Angel, is Kei-On’s girl until stolen away by Broom Man. Future Cops seems to be Winnie Lau’s biggest movie roll.
Tai-Hung’s Mother Chun Tai (King-Tan Yuen) – Does the whirlwind kick like her daughter. King-Tan Yuen is in tons of films as supporting roles. Was also seen here in My Kung Fu Sweetheart and Haunted Office.
Uncle Richard Yu (Richard Ng Yiu-Hon) – Uncle Richard is Tai-Hung’s mom’s boyfriend. He can speak a few lines of English, which excites his girlfriend. (Actor Richard Yu knows more than a few lines.) He will become Green Wolf (Blanka.) Usually enters attacks while spinning in a Green Ball. His special move is Electrical discharge. Richard Ng is a famous comedian in Hong Kong who is semi-retired now.

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