Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Hulkeasexo it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

kosmasp I watched this at a Fantasy Film Festival and was surprised how funny it was. The action part was expected, but the silly things in the movie really do work. You could say "Spirit" silly, although the overall movie is not as silly as Spirit of course.It's a really great "Origin" movie and I guess you don't have to know the Mangas this is based on (I hadn't read/seen anything about this character, before I watched the movie). Great action set pieces, great actors, nice editing, of course mostly foreseeable, but still quite a few crazy ideas. If you like fun action movies, you can't go wrong with this one!

8thSin American remakes of Asian movies are becoming common nowadays... well, take this Hollywood! "Japanese Batman-meets-Spiderman" pretty much describes this movie. Explanation of plot not necessary.Despite the lack of originality and the absurdity of the story, it turned out to be a very entertaining movie for me. The cast is all-star, and not only that, they fit their part very well.One thing I really have to praise about this movie is the CG. The special effects in this movie was by far the best I have seen in any Japanese films. It's true this is nowhere near the Hollywood level, but at least it's not ridiculously fakey like every other Japanese movies that attempted to create an entire world with CGI.A funny and exciting thriller, don't think too much and just enjoy the movie.

dbborroughs In a world where the second world war never happened, class structure is rigidly enforced, Nikola Telsa wins the Nobel Prize and there are dirigibles, gyro-copters and the like, a villain called K-20 (because he has at least 20 different faces) is going around stealing art treasures from the rich. Well known detective Akechi is called into investigate when K-20 steals the model of a Telsa free energy machine. Things get complicated when circus performer Heikichi Endo is mistaken for K20 by the police when the job of photographing the engagement ceremony of Akechi to his fiancé the Duchess Yoko Hashiba, goes horribly wrong. It soon becomes clear that K-20 has set up Heikichi, and its left to the young circus performer to find away to break free and clear his name.I have described this as the superhero (Batman like) movie that I have been waiting for but never knew I was waiting for it. For the two hours and twenty minutes of the running time I was the two year old kid with the Batman t-shirt on with his nose literally pressed against the glass of the screen. I was there and going along for the ride where ever the ride took me.And what a ride. Set in a steam punkish world like our own but different, this is a film that was free to go and do what it wanted. Its a film that takes all the cool things from the pulp fiction of the 1930's and 40's mixes them with the iconic superhero material from today and serves it up into a mixture thats familiar but wonderfully new. Yes you've seen it before, there are shots that are cribbed from a variety of sources (the Batman movies) but they are the right shots to use. They are visual cues that deepen what we are watching.The plot moves along as a grand mystery, but at the same time odds are you're going to know who's who and whats what. The plot will play out in ways best described as the sort of thing you can guess, but at the same time thats not right. Things play out as they must. This is a retelling of a story that we all know and we laugh and cry out and cheer when the film gets to our favorite parts even though we've never seen them before. Thank god no one was around me in the theater as I repeatedly said "YES!" to myself as the film hit every point exactly as it should.I loved the characters.Takeshi Kaneshiro as Heikichi Endo is right on target.He is the hero we'd all like to be. Even better is Takako Matsu as Yoko. The prim and proper young lady who proves to be much more than her title suggests. Her refrain that she is a "modest girl from a good family" covers a great deal of kick ass ability. She is now my new ideal woman (sorry Mrs Charles). The rest of the cast is for the most part note perfect.Is it a perfect film? No, some of the plotting is a bit awkward as if they didn't quite clip it from the source correctly. There are a couple of burps with the CGI of K20 bouncing across the roofs and in one bit the dialog between Heilichi and his young friend is awkward. Other wise its just a great rip roaring adventure that Hollywood should have made but didn't. (Okay twist my arm there aren't enough dirigibles and I would have loved a gyro-copter chase- but I'm being picky.) You want to see this, and you want to see it on as big a screen as possible. This film rocked my world and reduced me to a gibbering idiot as the phone messages I left after seeing it will attest.This is one of the best films of the year and one of my favorite films, period.See this film. If they give this film a big screen release in the US go see it you will love it.Thats it, go see this. (and I haven't even talked about the action which includes one of the best final confrontations between antagonists I've seen. I loved it, really)

DICK STEEL There's no stopping Takeshi Kaneshiro in charming the socks off everyone, especially since new fans were won over by his heartfelt performance as the Grim Reaper in Accuracy of Death last year, and following that with his Zhuge Liang in Red Cliff. This year in Singapore, he marquees a big budgeted action-mystery masked vigilante movie, and while his powers and abilities to hark back to the Batmans and Spidermans, K-20 turned out to be rather entertaining for its liberal use of special effects, comedy and some fantastic action sequences, set against at alternate Japanese universe.Which is interesting because other than the unmistakable Tower, Tokyo now known as Teito, is quite unrecognizable, and plaguing the country is a huge class and income divide between the aristocrats, and everyone else, which reads the Poor and have nots. It's set after WWII which never happened since Japan signed a peace treaty with the US and the UK, and hence what we have is some strangely futuristic backdrop, and some peculiar background on everyone being conditioned for pre-determined jobs and not having the ability to switch careers. Doesn't make a difference actually to the story, but gives you the feeling that everything is centrally planned.While the title points to K-20, the fiend with 20 faces, the story's actually focused on Heikichi Endo (Kaneshiro) as a poor circus acrobat. And if Bat-fans would see some similarities here, I'd say his character's more like Dick Grayson and with putting his abilities to fighting crime, it's almost exactly how a Nightwing would behave. But back to Japan, Heikichi gets set up by K-20 himself, and gets framed into allowing everyone to believe he's actually the masked villain himself. Breaking out of prison thanks to a merry bunch of thieves whom he soon allies himself with, Heikichi makes it his quest to flush out K-20 and to clear his name, with the help of a nifty grappling hook and rope device.Not being sexist here, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that K-20 is directed by a female - Shimako Sato, who also adapted the screenplay from a novel by So Kitamura. It's a fresh perspective having to watch an action movie directed by a female at the helm, and the focus here was of course on the characters. We have Takako Matsu as the Duchess Yoko Hashiba, who isn't your standard fare damsel-in-distress, and Toru Nakamura as the police inspector Akechi Kogoro, the arch-enemy of and resident expert on K-20.It's a classic action mystery which like The Prestige has Russian scientist Teslar providing the object of tussle, a device capable of harnessing and transmitting vast electrical power across locations without the use of cables. K-20 wants it to rule the world, and it's up to our heroes to crack the mystery as to where the device is, and to stop the villain from achieving his goal. The plot's fairly simple, which includes an origin story for Heikichi including the antics of a hero in training, but what made it palatable was the excellent delivery by the cast, together with gorgeous sets and edge-of-your-seat action. A key element here too is the identity of K-20, having nobody actually seen the villain in the flesh except for Heikichi himself.The story however does sag a little when it lingers on the more dramatic moments, and you'd know for sure when Kaneshiro gets replaced by stuntmen for most of the action shots not on closeup. But as far as big-budgeted movies like these go, K-20: Legend of the Mask still came across as pretty entertaining and all primed for sequels and a franchise should the box office prove to be successful.