K-20: Legend of the Mask (aka Kaijin niju menso den)

Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
5/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
3/10

Year made: 2008
Runtime: 137 minutes
IMDB page: here

First Japanese action movie I've seen. Long, bland, nice set design but overall, please. Someone should have told me not to watch it. I should stick with the Japanese horror genre.

Plot: It's set in an alternative universe where Japan avoided WWII and enters into a caste system with great social unequality. Heikichi is a circus performer who loves his circus, though it's barely making ends meet. A suspicious old dude hires him to take some tabloid pictures of the engagement ceremony between Miss Yoko, the duke's daughter, and Count Akechi, a famous private detective. At the ceremony, Heikichi's arrested as the infamous thief K-20. When he escapes, he finds the circus burnt down and himself a wanted man. To get his old life back, he vows to hunt down the real K-20, who seems to have a plan to destroy the world...?!

Okay, stop, some brief explanation. K-20 and Detective Akechi are characters created by famous mystery writer Edogawa Rampo. Akechi is kind of like Sherlock Holmes, and K-20 is like Arsene Lupin, the master thief who excels at disguises and steals artworks for thrills rather than money. Akechi's not a count in Rampo's stories, and K-20 is not a true villain with a real agenda. Which brings us to the...

Script: based on Kitamura Sou's novel very loosely based on Rampo's characters. Never read the novel, but I have read some Rampo and this movie is so DISAPPOINTING. It's nothing like Rampo, which is what I expected due to the film's title. And the turns and twists are quite ridiculous. And predictable. And boring. And doesn't make sense, even though you see it coming. Don't ask me how that works.

Cast: Kaneshiro Takeshi, the Japanese-Taiwanese actor/singer/all-around heartthrob, plays Heikichi with an earnest passion that is just... irritating. He's not cool, he's not charming, he just talks his mystique to death. I used to like him. Now ... not so much. Nakamura Toru, who plays Akechi, is properly stiff and not like Rampo's Akechi at all. Matsu Takako, who plays Lady Yoko, also blabbers too much like an excited little girl, except she's not little so it's not adorable.

Production: The set design is perhaps the only good aspect of the movie. The alternative universe feel is similar to that of The Golden Compass, zeppelins included. The clothes, the buildings, the skyline all have a brown, earthy tone, old and glamourous at the same time.

ARRRRR.... remind me not to watch Japanese action movies in the future. It was over 2 hours long! There's way too much flat humour involved, that kind that's supposed to be cute but just turns out to be too slow and taking up too much time.