Akira
Let’s begin by turning the clock back some 38 years. That was when the world first experienced an animated film unlike pretty much anything that had preceded it. Based on a Manga series – Manga being Japanese graphic novels, this one written by Katsuhiro Ōtomo – Akira tackles a range of issues in its 2-hour-plus running time. Set in 2019, those issues include everything from biker gang rivalries to political corruption, military coups to violent street protests, paranormal intrigue to teen angst, all overshadowed by a nuclear-type disaster that had occurred 31 years before. A manically vibrant blend of colors, tones and wildly half-baked coinciding plotlines, Akira may feel somewhat familiar to today’s audiences, more so certainly than when it first emerged. But it still retains both visual and contextual power, with larger meanings that we could debate for the entirety of this program if we so chose.
Hope
Let’s now turn to something else from East Asia, this being a blend of sci-fi horror and occasional humor written and directed by Na Hong-jin. When we talked about Akira, one of the aspects of the film that I pointed out was writer-director Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s inclusion of social, cultural and political commentary in what otherwise might pass as an animated adventure. And for the first half hour or so of Na Hong-jin’s film Hope, it’s possible to see some similarity. A few of the banners in the village of Hope Harbor bear political messaging – we’re apparently somewhere near the border of North Korea, you see. Furthermore, several of the citizens we meet make disparaging remarks about the police chief, whose hapless actions in the face of what we finally discover is a murderous entity make him the contemporary equivalent of a Keystone Cop. But then Hope, despite some suspenseful sequences and more than a few comic asides, gleefully offers up an operatic ballet of graphic violence, goes on a bit too long and ends … well, not with a scream or even a groan but with a head-scratching whimper.
Movies 101 is hosted by Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender, Mary Pat Treuthart and produced by Aaron Weer. Web support is provided by Anna Gyure Havlek.