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Inuyashiki (2018) – English Review

Where there is a hero, you will also find a villain.

A young man and an elderly man are in a park when suddenly the sky lights up. And after that, they remember nothing. When they wake up, they have become powerful robots that can cure sick people or hurt people. The youngest man who has mental problems becomes evil, and he kills innocent people. There’s only one man who can stop him, and that’s the elderly man.

Inuyashiki is based on a manga and anime series that I’ve never heard of. I easily noticed that this was the director behind the Gantz movies. I associate Shinsuke Sato with making movies that are based on mangas, and especially movies in the science fiction genre.

Inuyashiki is an entertaining movie that could remind me of Death Note. Two different people have the same superpowers. One uses his superpowers to do good things, while the other has decided to kill all the citizens of Japan.

Even though the movie is entertaining, it’s far from perfect. The movie has several problems. One problem is that the elderly man’s family are terrible people! The movie never gives us a reason why we should care about the family of the elderly and kind man. They look down on him all the time. So why on earth should we care about these three self-absorbed assholes?

The antagonist seems like a decent person at first. But he has mental issues, and after visiting his father and his new family, he kills three innocent people and the darkness in him takes over.

But something is missing here about the story that’s being told and the events we are seeing. It’s annoying that we never get an answer to why they turned these two into robots at the beginning of the movie. It’s fine for those who have read the manga or watched the anime series. But for us who just want to watch the movie, I hope at least that there will be a sequel that will explain more. Because the ending is shit!

The runtime is 2 hours, but it disappointed me at how little effort they made during these two hours to fill up the universe. There’s a lot of dead time here, and I never felt that we saw much character development. The movie lacks content, and when the antagonist in the movie turns into a supervillain, it’s not very interesting in the long run to see him point his finger and say bang! The elderly man doesn’t do much other than practice, as superheroes do when they have been given superpowers.

Inuyashiki also points a finger at the Japanese society and on social media and the inferior status, you get if you are a single mother. There are probably other things here I didn’t catch.

The action scenes are entertaining, and there are some nice, dramatic scenes here. In some scenes, when the two central characters are flying in the air, the computer effects are poor. But otherwise, I have to say that the computer effects are good, considering that this is a Japanese movie.

I hope there will be a sequel because the ending isn’t satisfactory enough. Inuyashiki is a decent entertainment movie, but it doesn’t have enough content to fill up the universe where the story takes place or good enough character development. It’s rare I miss more content when a movie lasts for two hours, but the universe in Inuyashiki feels empty.

Rating: 6/10

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