Gunhed (1989): A Deeply Flawed Masterpiece [Editorial]
In the year 2005, on a tiny volcanic island, designated simply 8JO, located 1,000 miles from the Asian coast, the Cybotech Corporation built the world’s first fully self-contained industrial complex. Its purpose: to manufacture the most advanced robots ever known. At the heart of this complex, a computer… more advanced, more powerful than any other that came before, the Kyron 5.
Where do I start with this movie? It feels as if Gunhed is stalking me for a few good years now. Every now and then, I stumble upon some piece of trivia connected with it. I gave it a try back in 2016 and reviewed it, but it just stuck my mind for good. Cue 2020, I decided to revisit Gunhed and gather everything I know about it into one coherent whole. So, let’s do a deep dive into the story behind a cyberpunk spectacle that no one really talks about today.
The story begins with our beloved King of the Monsters, Godzilla. Back in 1984, Toho Studios tried to resurrect the franchise after 10 years of hiatus. As a result, they produced a film called The Return of Godzilla (original title: Gojira 1984). The movie became a domestic success, with good reviews from the critics and decent box office results (though, the same cannot be said about the American cut of the film which was released a year later). Toho wanted to continue the rebooted series, but it was difficult for them to find any great ideas for the follow-up. In consequence, they decided to hold a script competition across Japan in order to harvest fresh ideas about a new Godzilla movie. (Note: similar contest was done prior to Terror of Mechagodzilla movie in 1975).
An early draft written by a Shinichiro Kobayashi was given the first place, and Toho greenlit the second Godzilla Heisei film: Godzilla vs. Biollante. Nevertheless, there was a second submission which gained the producers attention. A script prepared by an American citizen James Bannon focused on Godzilla facing off against a super computer which declared war on the King. Short synopsis from Toho Kingdom site reads as follows: “In the near future, Godzilla goes up against an incredibly advanced computer system, which deploys its own defenses to stop the creature. Godzilla now must confront enormous mechanized machines in order to reach the central computer” (source).
For some reason, Toho really liked the premise, so they decided to make a science fiction flick out of it, but it was not to feature Godzilla. They brought in a young director Masato Harada and, I suspect, the project meeting must have looked more or less like this.
Toho Studios: “Hey, so we want you to make a new Godzilla film in which he fights a computer, but the catch is that we don’t want any Godzilla. We only want to have a top-of-the-line super computer that wants to destroy mankind. Are you in?” After a brief pause, Masato Harada responded , “I’m your huckleberry!”
Consequently, the director heavily reworked James Bannon’s script, turning it into a futuristic tale about robot wars. The title of the film Gunhed (an abbreviation of Gun UNit of Heavy Eliminate Device). With the whopping budget of 1,5 billion yen (actually, such big companies as Sunrise, Bandai, Kadokawa, and IMAGICA joined the production; the budget for Godzilla vs. Biollante was two times smaller), the filming began in 1989 and the film was released in Japan on July 22, the same year.
The story of the film goes like this: In the early 2000s, a highly advanced A. I. system was built on a remote Asian island 8JO. The super computer known as Kyron 5 was autonomously running the island for 20 years until it reached a conclusion that humanity is irrelevant, so it started a war. Humans send special Gunhed battalions in order to stop Kyron 5. The battalion was defeated, whereas the computer shut itself off…
13 years later, a group of scavengers arrives at the forgotten island, looking for old computer chips which became a valuable commodity in the 2030s. However, the facility has a set of automated defences which eliminate the scavengers one by one. A guy called Brooklyn (Masahiro Takashima) accidentally finds another survivor, a Texas Air Ranger Sgt. Nim (played by American actress Brenda Bakke). It turns out that a bio-droid went rogue and stole a vial with powerful energy material known as Texmexium. The protagonists, together with two surviving children of the original residents of 8JO, discover that Kyron 5 attempts to reactivate itself and use Texmexium for global domination. Determined to stop Kyron 5, Brooklyn rebuilds an old Gunhed unit (voice of Randy Reyes).
Indeed, the synopsis for this film is long and a bit confusing. From the very beginning of the film a lot of information is thrown at the viewers, so one has to really pay attention to what happens on the screen. However, incoherent dialogue, shoddy editing, and disjointed sequence of events really put you out of the viewing experience.
For instance, see the screenshot presented below. The characters are in one location and we get a transition to exactly the same location…
In addition, when there are action scenes, it is hard to make out the geography of the scene where the characters are positioned against each other.
As for the dialogue… let me just say that the dire George Lucas’ sand monologues are Oscar worthy when compared with the stuff that the protagonists of Gunhed say. Even though there are two separate language audio tracks for Gunhed, none of these are remotely good. In the English track, we have the same obnoxious over-the-top voice acting from early Godzilla releases. In the Japanese track, on the other hand, characters speak very silently and they frequently throw clichés about courage and getting a grip. Interestingly, the voices of Brenda Bakke and Randy Reyes are the only ones unaltered in both language versions.
Having said all this, what are the redeeming factors of Gunhed? Certainly, the movie has magnificent cyberpunk atmosphere which was made possible thanks to top notch miniature work, production design (helmed by Fumio Ogawa), amazing practical effects (directed by a Godzilla veteran, Koichi Kawakita), and unique music score (composed by Toshiyuki Honda and Takayuki Baba). The team behind Gunhed actually built a human sized mock up of the titular robot for the fight scenes.
Indeed, the production designer and special effects supervisor gave their very best in the process of making this movie. However, it seems that the director, Masao Harada, as well as the editor, Yoshitami Kuroiwa, totally gave up, having been overwhelmed by the magnitude of this cyberpunk project.
Instead of an epic Godzilla movie, what we have today is a mess of a movie. If you look close enough into the abyss of Gunhed, you will see the footmarks of Alien, Blade Runner, and The Terminator. Basically, the plotline of this movie is Ripley and Hicks from Aliens trying to stop Skynet from The Terminator. I think that the best way to describe this film is to call it a compilation of live-action cutscenes from a cancelled PS1 game. They don’t work well together at all, but they please the eye.
Although, it’s been over 30 years since the release of this picture, Gunhed still enjoys a cult following in its homeland. We, Western disbelievers, have only DVD release to fall back on, whereas the Japanese enjoy the film in HD and also read a manga series. Interestingly, one of my favourite J-singers, Mariko Nagai, actually sang a theme song (Time ~ Song for Gunhed) for the movie, which is featured halfway through the end credits of the Japanese version. Thankfully, you can find full Music Video on YouTube.
All things considered, this was my retrospective look at the Gunhed movie. My mission is now completed and I hope that a giant robot will leave me alone now. Have you seen Gunhed? If so, please share your thoughts in the comments. As always, thank you for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment moderation is switched on due to recent spam postings.