The greatest movie ever made..!

Such a frustrating disappointment

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Hot on the heels of what was at the time his greatest film, the dark and beautiful Gamera 3, Kaneko took a breather from the world of kaiju, and directed and co-wrote this adaptation of a popular horror novel. In his own words he wanted to attempt something more focused on human drama.While it the script does occasionally meander, it is refreshingly free of the self consciousness which taints so many similar films, (such as the X-men movies) and its earnest take on the ethics of revenge is served with a fascinating dash of moral ambiguity. What's more, it has a surprisingly powerful emotional core, and one scene in particular was so unexpectedly touching that it brought tears to my eyes.The film's greatest strength is its character development. The heroine, Aoki Junko, is one of Kaneko's most compelling characters outside of the Death Note films. The fine details of her everyday life, -such as the precautions she has taken against her own powers- add greatly to her believability, and her development as a person in response to the plot's twists and turns gives the film its backbone. Her hesitant attempts to connect with other people after a life of solitude are very touching, and provide a poignant Yin to the Yang of the brutal action sequences. Actress Akiko Yada's portrayal of Junko is strong and subtle, wonderfully capturing her emotional torment and moral uncertainty. The secondary characters and are also given a nice degree of ambiguity and depth, and are nicely acted to boot. Of these, the standout is Kaori Momoi as Ishizu, a shrewd, cynically jovial and compassionate female detective. These three qualities are a hard act to balance, but Kaori and Kaneko pull it off nicely. What's more, she gets a ton of awesome lines, such as this gem to a male colleague, "Don't look at me like that, you remind me of my dog."Though the passionate enthusiasm he brought to GMK and the Gamera trilogy is noticeably absent, Kaneko's direction is solid nonetheless. While his pacing could use some tightening, his characteristic uses of crane shots and character mannerisms are effective, and as with his kaiju films, his artistic composition turns what could have been merely serviceable FX shots into beautiful works of art.Speaking of the special effects, they are very impressive. While a few of the death scenes are slightly cheesy and fake, the pyrotechnics are overall spectacular, and the marriage of digital and practical techniques is daring and competent. It may look slightly dated today, but for a relatively low budget film made in 2000, it's an admirable achievement.Sadly, the score by Ko Otani is rather weak. It adds little in the way of tension or drama, and is quite distracting at times. Furthermore, it's a serious disappointment given his usually very high standards, and the magnificence of his prior score for G3. Overall, Crossfire has some flaws, but also enough strong positives to outweigh them. It may not measure up to G3 or the Death Note films, but it's still a well made and entertaining fantasy film with a lot more emotional depth than most of its stable mates.

Sorry about the pun, but I really did enjoy this Japanese take on Firestarter. The acting is uniformly excellent, especially by lead Akiko Yada as the pyrokinetic Junko, and Kaori Momoi who gives a wonderfully atypical and original performance as Inspector Ishizu. The film has so many nifty plot threads that I scarcely knew what to expect next. It begins as a typical Carrie-type shocker, becomes a tragic romance, then veers into crime drama by introducing a gang of thugs who appear to kill for thrills. After that, we have a few plot twists which involve snuff films, a corrupt police chief and a mysterious band of vigilantes named the Guardians. That's a lot of plot for a horror thriller, and the movie carries it off beautifully leading to a final, explosive and exciting showdown in an amusement park involving all the lead characters.The special effects in this movie are among the best I have seen, absolutely impeccable, and this helps the film considerably. The pace may seem slow at times for western audiences used to breakneck action, but it pays off by making the action scenes here stand out and resonate with the audience. At almost two hours, the film is long, but it is packed with enough interesting characters, events and revelations to keep most viewers thoroughly entertained.

First of all, this one is filed as "Horror", but I didn't find this too much of a horror, not much enough for claiming it to be a pure one. It felt more like a b-thriller, but it had its moment for sure. This movie is a bit special, and it is weird because I can't really put my finger and point out the elements that made this film good (average). When it was all over, I still felt touched by it. The plot is quite neat with some interesting conspiracy ideas, and besides the b-effects (who were a bit "too" much, ehm) there were some moments that I did found quite charming. It didn't turn out to be the movie I expected, but still a good time-killer. 6/10.

Crossfire, or Pyrokinesis, is a movie made by the person who resurrected the Gamera movies. If you have seen any of those, you know what Shusuke Kaneko can do with old ideas.This calls to question if Crossfire is a some sort of remake of Firestarter. The answer to this was best given by the director who stated that he was well aware of the movie Firestarter while making Crossfire, but didn't want to do a remake. Instead he was going for more of a mature story focusing on the character emotions to a greater extent, and leaving the pyrokinetics as a secondary aspect. The good news is that he succeeded. Crossfire provides characters that are very complex. Often in asian cinema the hero is not just your average "good person" as in many American movies of this type - instead you have someone walking in a sort of grey zone. This is the case with the lead character Junko. What she does to exemplify this is... well.. watch the movie.Needless to say, I liked the film a lot (even with difficult to read subtitling - white on white sometimes.) There has been a lot of crap following in the footsteps of The Ring trying to be Japanese horror hits, but Crossfire stands out with its engaging storyline and amazing special effects.