Review for K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask

Introduction

Manga Entertainment are getting their 2011 live action campaign to a flying start this January. They have Tajomaru: The Avenging Blade coming at the end of the month, but to kick things off in grand style, they bring us K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask first of all. K-20, or Nijyu Menso: The Fiend With 20 Faces is the villainous gentleman thief created by Rampo Edogawa as a foil for his Detective Akechi hero in the venerable Boys Detective manga, and the characters have been part of Japanese popular culture ever since, for over 50 years. They keep cropping up in various forms of entertainment, and have inspired countless other creations down the years, including the Detective Conan manga and anime. K-20: The Legend of the Black Mask switches things around, making K-20 the protagonist… sort of. It's based on the novels of So Kitamura, and given the sort of blockbuster treatment that you usually see in the multiplex money magnets that come from Hollywood. This is grand, flash, and epic. But is it any good?


The year is 1949, and it's a world where WWII never happened. The nations of the world saw sense and decided not to go to war. Hence, Japan has never moved away from its imperialist past. It's still a stratified culture, divided between rich and poor, where a caste system segregates society, and where marrying for something as crass as love would cause a scandal. The Imperial Capital of Teito is the playground of K-20 - The Fiend With 20 Faces, as he goes about relieving the privileged of their prize possessions, arrogant enough to announce his next targets to challenge the police, before he waltzes away with the goods from right under their noses.


Tasked with capturing the thief is aristocratic detective Kogoro Akechi, and his feud with the thief captures the nation's attention. He'll have to up his game though, as K-20 has set his sights on something far more lethal than money or trinkets. A demonstration of Nikola Tesla's latest invention, a means of transmitting electricity wirelessly causes the thief to gatecrash, and grab the prototype. He could conceivably hold the world to ransom with a full-scale device, as the transmitter is just as much a weapon as it is a power transmitter. The rumour is that Tesla worked with the Hashiba corporation, and if anyone could have constructed a full scale device… Yoko Hashiba is the society heiress who stands to inherit the company, and coincidentally is engaged to Detective Akechi.


For circus performer Heikichi Endo, that may be the chance to make some quick cash. He's an accomplished acrobat and illusionist, but as the circus is on the lowest rung of society's ladder, he and his friends are rarely flush with money. When a journalist shows up with a wad of notes, and a camera, asking if Endo can use his skills to snap a few candid shots of the happy couple at their engagement party, he leaps at the chance. Scaling a tower and clamping himself to a window is difficult enough, but he isn't expecting the building to explode when he clicks the shutter. Arrested and framed as K-20, the police refusing to listen to his protestations of innocence, he has no choice but to escape. It seems as if the only way he'll be able to prove his innocence is to actually don the thief's mask and beat him at his own game, finding the energy generator first.

Picture

K-20 gets a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, which is hard to fault given that it is such a recent film. It's a native PAL transfer, which means that it is clear, sharp and colourful throughout. That brings out the fabulous alternate 1940s production design to lavish effect. The stunts are fantastic, there is a whole lot of free running to marvel at, and for once it actually makes sense in the story's context. The costumes are fabulous, the period details are well thought out, and just to give it a slightly parallel world feel, there's a smattering of zeppelins and gyrocopters cruising the sky. It's a top-notch transfer that could only be improved upon if it were in high definition. Which makes the Blu-ray being released on the same day pretty convenient.

Sound

You have the choice of DD 5.1 and DD 2.0 Japanese, with optional English subtitles. It's a great, bombastic soundtrack, which brings the film's action out with depth and resonance. As with many modern films though, you may have to man the volume control trying to balance out the action and the dialogue. The music of the film is very evocative of the period, heroic and triumphant, just the sort of music that you would expect from a re-imagined 30's action serial. It comes from Naoki Sato, whose grand theatrical score for X: The TV Series was one of its highlights.  The Oasis theme over the end credits probably doesn't quite match that image when you think about it, but The Shock of the Lightning fits the tone of the film like a glove. The dialogue is clear throughout, and the script has a light touch and a wit to it that really sparkles. The only annoyance is a very ill placed layer change.

Extras

K-20 gets a set of very animated menus, but the only extra is the 25-minute Behind the Scenes featurette, which has comments from the director and the cast. It's the usual EPK mixture of clips, behind the scenes shots, and interviews, but there is a fair bit of interesting stuff here, especially about the source material upon which the film is based.

Conclusion

K-20 is a blast! I got the same feeling watching this film as I used to get when I was a child, and went to the cinema to watch the latest summer blockbusters, and was entertained by great stories, charming characters, and original ideas. Of course at that age, every second idea felt original, but none of my current cynicism with regards to Hollywood, and its identikit moneymaking schemes had yet set in. There was no jumping on gimmicks as there is today with 3D, there was no milking a franchise until it was a mouldering corpse, and there weren't any films being put together by committee instead of a single director's vision. There was originality, inventiveness, risk taking, and most of all fun. Watching K-20: The Legend of the Black Mask, I had fun, an overwhelming childlike joy at a good old-fashioned popcorn movie. It's an action adventure film that wears its heart and its influences on its sleeve, delivers fast paced, pulse pounding entertainment, has rich and appealing characterisations, and isn't afraid of the occasional misstep in its effort to deliver something different.


The irony of it all is that K-20 isn't even that original. It is after all a superhero flick, and recent years have been replete with such offerings. The look of the title character carries a lot from Batman, while his abilities as a cat-burglar who races across rooftops is more akin to Spider-man. But the joy of the film comes from the period setting, an alternate late forties where the war never happened. Japan never had that cultural revolution that came with the US occupation, so it still has a stratified and militaristic society. But the look of the period, with its almost steampunk mechanical designs, its zeppelins and gyrocopters, the music of the period, the architecture and costume designs is all very evocative. I found myself thinking of films like The Shadow, The Rocketeer, and especially Indiana Jones. It doesn't hurt that the style of the film, the storytelling and the characters very much pays lip service to Indiana Jones and the adventure serials that inspired it. The characters are larger than life, drawn in broad strokes. The director injects a sense of humour into proceedings that keeps the film well away from the dark, brooding superheroes that we so often get, but never lets the comedy overwhelm the story.


It's the characters that really appeal, particularly the hero of the piece, Heikichi Endo. He's a talented circus performer, an acrobat and illusionist, which at least gives him the basic skills and believability to eventually become K-20. But he's far from the moody, or steely-jawed hero type. He may be supremely assured in his abilities, but he's socially awkward, isn't afraid to show his reluctance to face overwhelming odds, and can be likeably clumsy at times. Every hero needs a sidekick, and his is Genji, the mechanical genius that helps set up his circus stunts, but whose day job is far more nefarious. As such he can fashion all sorts of gadgets that a crusading superhero thief might need. K-20's foe is the dogged Detective Akechi, a man who is supremely confident of his abilities as well, and also knows how to work a crowd. He is after all a famous detective as well as nobility. He has the police at his beck and call, as well as a legion of boy detectives. It's his fiancée Yoko Hashiba that really appeals in this film. She's obviously also a member of the nobility, and very much restrained by her circumstances and the social mores of the period. At first acquaintance, she appears meek and accepting of her destiny, but it's when Heikichi rescues her from the real K-20 that she comes alive. She isn't intimidated by swinging through the air, and her initial encounter with Heikichi and his friends allows for some great culture clash comedy. But meeting Heikichi, and helping him try and prove his innocence, also helps her break free of her social restraints, and soon she's as feisty and determined a heroine as you can imagine.


The film isn't perfect. It does wallow in schmaltz at times, and the social messages are always hammered home with an unsubtle manner that can be cloying. It's also not the deepest of stories; the one twist in the tale is signposted so early on, that I actually spent a good portion of the film trying to fool myself that it wasn't so. It's not such a big deal though, as an action adventure like K-20 doesn't really need complexity. Neither will you mind a couple of gaping plot holes, simply because the film is just so much fun. Yet even with all that, it did manage to surprise me on more than one occasion. I genuinely had that thrill and excitement that I used to get when I watched a film as a child. K-20 may be derivative, it may remind of half a dozen other films (watch out for the Metropolis references!), yet absurdly, it felt fresh and invigorating. More to the point, this is the first time in years that I have got to the end credits of a film, wanting to see the sequel right away. With characters this entertaining, and a world as rich and as colourful, it would be a crime not to make another one!