An evolution in Sci-Fi

For a long time it’s been pretty much a given that the flashy science fiction film was pretty much the sole province of Hollywood – after all, who else had the immense amounts of cash available that you needed to make one of these monster spectacles? Sure, some were filmed in other countries, but all the money and the bulk of the talent originated in the good ol’ U S of A. Not any more. Check out the trailers for these two upcoming films:

casshern.jpg
Casshern is a Japanese live action adaptation of an old anime and it looks staggering in a classic Alex Proyas sort of way. The production design on this stands with some of the very best stuff I’ve EVER seen on screen and between the mechas in this and the giant robots in Sky Captain I’m starting to get very excited about just how good the live action adaptation of Neon Genesis Evangelion (arguably the greatest anime series ever produced) could be. All the links on the film’s main page are clearly labelled in English, so the trailer isn’t at all hard to find.

immortel.jpg
The French film Immortel‘s fusion of science fiction with Egyptian gods brings Stargate to mind but this one looks to put Emmerich et al to shame with it’s incredible visual style. Sure, the dialog is a bit stilted in the way it pretty much always is when non-English speakers direct in English, but there are an awful lot of pretty pictures to look at … links to two different trailers are at the bottom of the main page in in both ‘Standard’ and ‘Fullscreen’ modes.

Comment with Facebook

10 thoughts on “An evolution in Sci-Fi

  1. Casshern left me wishing for more eyes. One 15 minute stretch of battle (first one-on-one, then one-on-one thousand) surpassed EVERY CG/Studio blended fight sequence I’ve ever seen. Alas, this “climax” came midway through the movie, so while the visuals more than validate the film, you’re left with a (very “Japanese”) storyline in slow decline. (I ordered a region-free DVD from Hong Kong — no US release or sales to speak of). Love the site.

  2. Does any of you know any other movies resembling “Stargate”, “The 5th Element: or “Immortel”? I really like thse movies, but they are so rare. Please let me know if you know about some more from this category. Thanx a lot!!!

  3. i searched on msn under Casshern.. and found this site. and eee! now im very very excited about the movie. i found the trailer through a friend. he didn’t find it near as awesome as i did. haha. thanks.

  4. wow this is a very stunning movie…just the pics will stop you dead in your tracks…..and the trailer…wow, you should put finaly fantasy advent children on your site thats looking to be a good flik 2

  5. meep^^. I see no dates for the USA for Casshern (even with my ability to read small amounts of Japanese) but it looks incredible!

    this combined with Appleseed/Ghost in the Box made my day!

    ~eebil Mistress K

  6. I’m going to france in the first week of april – that means I get to see immortel – yeah for me. Dear dave- can I be the “woman” your website needs

Leave a Reply