SYNOPSICS
Kyaputen Hârokku (2013) is a Japanese movie. Shinji Aramaki has directed this movie. Yû Aoi,Jessica Boone,Ayano Fukuda,Arata Furuta are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2013. Kyaputen Hârokku (2013) is considered one of the best Animation,Adventure,Sci-Fi movie in India and around the world.
2977: For many years a mighty battle has been raging across the galaxies as 500 billion humans, whose forebears were exiled from Earth, plan to return to what is still called home. Forced to flee a ravaged Earth, humans have now depleted the corners of the galaxy to which they fled. Earth has now become the most valued and precious resource of all, controlled by the corrupt Gaia Coalition which governs the human race across the different galaxies. Having been exiled and vilified during the battle of the Homecoming War, Captain Harlock and his trusted crew of the Arcadia battle cruiser are the only hope mankind has of discovering the secrets that the Gaia have kept hidden. The Coalition has demanded Harlock's death and the Gaia Fleet's new leader, Ezra, calls on his younger brother, Logan, to infiltrate the Arcadia and then assassinate Harlock, thus forever eradicating the one man standing between the Coalition and their complete control of the Universe. Logan must make a very personal...
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Kyaputen Hârokku (2013) Reviews
A great opportunity is lost. It has everything except a good script.
The film was released yesterday, Oct 12h at Sitges Film Festival, here in Barcelona. This is a brief summary of my impressions: The first half hour of film announces an awesome movie: with a great intro the movie is presented visually stunning with a wonderful soundtrack, interesting characters, great action, but soon deflated by the poor script. Note that this is a Harlock film where Harlock is not the main character! The resources and ideas in some of the action scenes are weary of repeated over and over again... The cinematography is great until after the first 45 minutes aprox. , then the film becomes very explanatory , with many dialogues and voice- overs. It's from there when the script becomes poor. The changes in the character of Harlock are very large and they even betray the original spirit. In addition, i was tired with that "dark matter", an element of the movie used as a deus-ex-machina over and over again throughout the film. A great opportunity is lost because the movies is visually stunning and the artistic design work is very good. If they had wrote a simple script , elaborated but not so complicated and keeping the essence of the character, the result would have been much better. It's a shame, but i had an entertaining audiovisual 3D experience and i could discovered a beautiful soundtrack that i want to listen again and again imagining my ideal Harlock film.
A rather disappointing movie that proves that CGI cannot cover a bad story
***Spoiler Alerts*** The first thing you will likely notice about this movie is the absolutely GORGEOUS animation. And well, that's about all you'll see. I've not watched a lot of Matsumoto's work, but I'e read enough to know this isn't the true backstory for some of the main characters. In general they tried to make a series from the 80's that could very well take weeks of binge reading and cut it down to about 2 hours. Which will not cut it. If you are already investing some $300 million on a movie, it means you have enough money to make a 3-4 parter. Because that's how long it would take to inform the average Joe of everything that's going on in the universe. Because aside from that, nothing would be memorable. If i hadn't read or seen some of the manga or anime beforehand, I would think that this started out as Star Wars in the beginning and throughout, combined with Halo 2, with Final Fantasy, and combined with Cowboy Bebop. Here's the story for you poor confused souls, 1) Big war happened because of too many births. Apparently they found this out when the human population reached 500+ billion. 2) Resentful from the way he was treated and cast away from home, Captain Harlock uses the power of the dark matter, basically super nukes made from the alien's essence, and decides to rid the Earth of all life. 3) Ridden to the core in guilt he flies around the galaxy looking for a way to just end all suffering because he royally f*cked the Earth up, so he finds some 100 galaxy sized nukes that was basically like doing an easter egg hunt inside an empty barrel. 4) Kiddo from the basically Star Wars Empire (Here its called the Gaia Coalition) decides to try to make his unappreciative brother happy for a mistake he did as a kid, and plays a saboteur. He becomes attached to a pirate crew (pirate being used loosely because they're only after the big galaxy nukes) and decides, "Imma be a pirate!" and plot twist happens. 5) Plot twist happened and after a small discussion with his older brother, he decides after having a flashback of an accident that happened when he was like 8-10 years old and only wanting to do his mom proud that he will finish what started. Plot twist happens again. 6) After this plot twist he finds himself unable to kill the captain so he decides to take a stroll on Earth, somehow still inhabitable by one person because a patch of flowers are still alive, but don't worry about the ash and debris or smoke filling you up, and picks some flowers while an interstellar war is going on. This i guess was a way to show the captain life still lives, but life adapts. It doesn't mean that that flower is a symbol that the Earth is safe again. 7) So after the heart-felt moment between Captain Harlock and his flower, we decide its time to take back the ship. Well that goes about as awfully as they could've planned, as the entire Coalitions fleet is there, and they got a toy still functioning after one use in 100 years. Looks like an exact replica of a Halo (video game) ring. And it fires what appears to be the Death Star on meth. And it misses the Earth AND the Arcadia (The ship). Threads that tiny space needle. But if the ship auto repairs why do they ever fear it being completely destroyed? In fact the original pirates of the Arcadia were fearless freedom fighters that often mindlessly obeyed Harlocks orders. But they cowered time after time in some really basic concepts of being rebels. Fighting the government. If you made it to the end of this movie still wondering what happened, you weren't alone. The movie made an impression like it was Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of The Black Pearl, if it was in Will Turner's POV the whole time, whereas it mentions very little about Captain Harlock, his crew, or even the main kiddo here that cant decide which side to be on. The movie failed to even deliver to me memorable names, because aside from Harlock,I hardly remember any of them. It was space fight, go find the big bomb detonator that for some reason is in plain sight, another space fight except a little less action, and then finish with the kiddo becoming the captain even though the original came back to life from the powers that be. Overall a very boring and time consuming experience, but worth a watch to allow all these greedy game devs or 3D animation studios that top quality graphics can NOT cover a crap story. Because I remember the manga in the 80's featured a lot more depth. This is like the shadow of the real story. If that much.
Nice animation hindered by inconsistent gibberish
There's a strange tendency in Japanese animation , it often uses cryptic and vague script to give the illusion of depth. Those who are familiar with animes or games would recognize this outdated pattern, the quirky storytelling would seem to be meaningful as the characters brood over a crisis, yet it barely tells anything relevant to the audience. In some cases it might even alienate the viewers. This is the persisting problem with Harlock. It certainly presents good quality visual as it floats across the light show, but the vague narrative hurts the presentation. The dialogues may sound flamboyant, yet it is actually shallow and superficial. Backstory is glossed over while the interactions are deprived of enjoyment. The characters, even though looking attractive, just can't generate enough interest as they banter with foreign jargon. It even resembles teen drama instead of space voyage at times. Development is often crude, only to give dramatic scenes without substance. The main story follows Yama as he tries to catch the titular Harlock. Both of them are not that audience friendly, they are already in lamentation with barely any introduction. It's hard to relate since they look like generic RPG cast with average mellow issue. Then it becomes heavily convoluted as the movie tries to mix strange terms, they sound ominously impaction like dark matter or ancient race, but material is too thin. After a hefty amount of scenery changes, cool poses and starship fights, the movie can barely hold interest for characters and with relatively long runtime it turns into a plodding endeavor. This is Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within all over again, glossy effect and drab boring story. It will be hard to either garner interest for new audience or please old fans with such lackluster narrative, but at least it works for an eye candy.
Incoherent and Delirious
This movie is simply completely incoherent and delirious. The plot make no sense. The characters are meaningless. The conversations are at random. The whole plot is based by an incomprehensible plan that none has understood, but for some reason the crew still follow the captain, even if no one has an idea of what they are doing. A character that change side 4 time in a movie with ridiculous reasons is one of the worse thing I ever seen. The only thing that save this movie is that the CGI is beautiful, and the ship is a true masterpiece of design. But a beautiful CGI cannot save a whole movie from being horrible.
A Space Pirate Captain Harlock that only resembles in appearance.
First off I would like to say that I grew up watching Harlock I am a die hard Harlock fan I have collected his Toy's, Models, Records, Movies, TV Animations and just about Everything Leiji Matsumoto has put out so my knowledge on this matter is immense. Now as for the new Harlock Movie, visually it was fun to watch. Seeing one's childhood hero in full on CG is always going to be entertaining but that was all it was. This movie lacked so much of the Essence and Soul of what is Leiji Matsumoto that I sort of considered the insert of a old Leiji Matsumoto drawing at the end of the credits a bit of a insult.. It's like saying "Hey we have the comics story's and art but we didn't use any of it" It was a slap in the face. I don't know what it is these days with buying the copyrights to something and then putting out something that is in no relation to the story.. What are the things that are wrong with this movie? Well here's a short list. 1. Harlock's back story is different from that of Arcadia of my Youth. 2. There is nothing about Leiji Matsumoto's art style in this movie asides from the appearance of his characters everything else is vacant his style of drawing city's buildings and computer rooms is not in here. The Gaia city looks more like Asgaurd from The Thor movie. 3. The enemy is GENERIC and forgettable.. there is nothing memorable. There is so many influential villains in Leijiverse you could have pulled something from the past like (Count Mecha, Queen Promethuem, Faust the Black Knight, The Mazone, or Illuminads. 4. In this movie Harlock's crew are portrayed as cowards Harlock's crew are not cowards! They might be pre-occupied but when Harlock asks for Volunteers those who sail under the flag of Freedom on the Arcadia VOLUNTEER. 5. In this movie Yataran is portrayed as a coward as well, Yataran is not a coward and never doubts Harlock, the XO has always believed in the captain and is far more important than what he is portrayed as in this movie. His love for building battleship and airplane models was also missing in this movie. The personality's of these characters was totally different from how they are portrayed in previous Harlock story's. 6. Spacewolf Fighters (Arcadias Space Fighter Jets) None to be seen in this movie. 7. Leiji Matsumotos love for WWII Airplanes and Battleships does not show in any of the mechanical designs. None of that. The Arcadia looks like a mix of HR Gigers Aliens and a giant penis. Even the enemy's fleet has no Leiji Matsumoto influence in the design of their ships. 8. No DR.Zero, No Masu chasing a Mi Kun with her Knife, No Chief Engineer Maji No Kiddodo and Taro Ama. 9. The story is a MESS, this story makes absolutely no sense, At first they present to you a crew that sails for freedom so much to the point that to board the ship it's the one word that will get you onboard the Arcadia yet as the back story goes according to this movie Harlock wasn't even about Freedom he was just some cursed pirate mutation who was spawned from black matter. Random weapons are being pulled out by the Gaia Coalition on the fly, giant space bomb, what? 10. Tochiro is like some almost un existent element in this movie. the Arcadias main computer where Tochiros soul lays is totally bares no resemblance to Leiji Matsumotos desgin which has been on each and every Arcadia previous to this movie. Furthermore it is like a non relevant thing in this movie. Tochiro and the Arcadia are a essential part to the Harlock Universe cutting that out is like pizza without the cheese it just doesn't work. Tochiro isn't just Harlocks best friend and traveling companion they are freaking Bro's before Hoe's brothers! With past life history you don't just brush a character like that under the rug. 11. There are no Mechanized people in this movie. In short this movie was a great big FAIL. Anyways I hope this movie was a one off and if ever there is to be another it will be giving to someone with some insight into Leiji Matsumotos Vision and history of Captain Harlock someone like Rintaro who has a history with Harlock and Galaxy Express and would understand the character and behavior of Captain Harlock and his followers.