User reviews

I was surprised by how much fun I had with this film. I was skeptical, but this turned out to be a really enjoyable Japanese film. It reminded me of 90's action adventure period pieces like The Shadow and The Rocketeer, which were some of my favorite films to watch as a kid. If you also enjoyed films like those, and to a lesser extent, films like Indiana Jones and other period action adventures, you will no doubt enjoy the film too.

The film takes place in Japan, 1949. World War II never took place and Japan remained with the feudal system, while the poor and the wealthy remained separate with no middle class. The wealthy rule, while the poor are left to starve and die on the street. None help the poor, with the exception of K-20, a master thief who steal priceless artifacts from the rich.

The film's main focus is Endo Eikichi, a circus performer who is tricked by K-20 into committing a crime and taking the blame for being K-20 himself. From there one, Eikichi is set on a quest to catch K-20 and clear his name.

The best thing about the film is its lead, Takeshi Kaneshiro as Eikichi. He's highly entertaining, as usual, and does a good job as he goes from agile circus performer to competent thief. He's funny, exciting, and plays up all the right things for this kind of film. The supporting cast is great as well, made up of several veterans of Japanese film and TV. They deliver in their performances with the right mix of adventurous spirit, drama, camp, and humor.

The film is also big, with some big sets, and few decent cg sets, and some big action moments. The best action sequences utilize parkour-style stunts, but less in the way B13 does it and more in common with something like Assassin's Creed, which came to mind during the big training sequences. These sorts of action scenes are a lot of fun and create for some excellent foot chases.

While the film does get a bit preachy about its rich versus poor plot line, it remains fun and, even when it slows down, the acting keeps you engaged. There is also a great deal of humor mixed in, which keeps things light. Suffice to say, the film never feels too heavy handed. Although it could have played up it's issues much more seriously, it thankfully never does.

Overall, I have to say that this is one of the more enjoyable Japanese films I have seen in a while. Much like America, I can't say I have seen too much I have thoroughly enjoyed as I enjoyed this film. If there were more films that aimed for the scope and Hollywood scale of this film, with as much talent as went into this film, we might see more enjoyable pictures from Japan.

K-20: Legend of the mask is considered a Japanese superhero movie although K-20 is not a superhero, he is more of Japanese robin hood but only more evil. The 2 billion yen movie has the realistic special effects that you rarely see in Japanese movies and its action scenes are breath-taking especially the acrobatic stunts and famous Takeshi Kaneshiro with good music

Story: It is set in 1949 where there is no world war, which is lucky. There is K-20, stealing priceless items from the rich. He frames an acrobat, Heikichi Endo (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Heikichi is caught and soon escapes. He then vows to unmask/catch K-20 and proves his innocence. The fight scenes with K-20 and Heikichi are stunning with amazing acrobatic stunts. I wish there will more of the breath-taking stunts in movies. As Heikichi races to find what K-20 is going after, it leads to the final battle between them where there happens to be a twist.

Overall: This is not to be missed for Takeshi fans or those who are fans of Japanese movies. K-20 may be a little long- the runtime is 2 hours 17 minutes but the plot is engrossing that you won't care about the time and watch how K-20 battles with Heikichi with wits and power. It is nice to see a big-budget Japanese action movie as the past few years, there are mostly Japanese thrillers like 20th century boys and death note.

Quite frankly I dislike most of the Hollywood comic to screen adaptations that have been made possible with high budget CGI and motion control. The most positive thing about a cheaply made film is that either the makers deliver shoddy goods (nearly every SciFi Channel movie) or they focus on story, drama and comedy which can result in the most satisfying movie.

K-20 inhabits a world that's very familiar to comic book readers, alternate history what-if. Here the Japanese have avoided WW2 and have evolved into a strange combination of the Taisho era with the totalitarian leanings of the Showa with technology seemingly mired in the 1920's even though the film is set in the late 1940's. German is used instead of English when a universal language is needed. The film revolves around a Japanese invention that finally brings Tesla's dream of wireless energy to fruition. Unfortunately it can also be used as an extremely powerful weapon.

The look of the film is excellent and the effects are, as others have pointed out, very good and well conceived. But that is true of many other big budget films like this. What makes this film different is the drama that fleshes out the fantasy. It's not perfect, some of the acting is old-school over-acting, the main characters are very familiar to anyone with familiarity with Japanese entertainment especially the Duke's daughter. And there are some moments that strain the viewer's credibility but The Dark Knight had moments like that as well. Overall the film ended and I had enjoyed myself.

There are way worse ways to spend your time, (The Spirit anyone?) hopefully this film will see a wide release.

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!

When I bought "K20: The Legend of the Black Mask" I believed it to be a Japanese superhero movie, but usually Takeshi Kaneshiro is great in movies, and that was the main reason for buying it, plus it was a live-action Manga movie, so what could possibly go wrong here?

"K20: The Legend of the Black Mask" is not a superhero movie, not by a long shot. And the black masked person known as K20 wasn't even the actual main character. The movie is about Heikichi Endo (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) who is a circus performer getting framed for the crimes done by K20. Out to prove his innocence, Endo teams up with the police in order to take down K20 and clear his name. The story takes place in Japan, and World War II haven't taken place, which was an unusual approach to the story, but in overall, that fact actually didn't reflect much in the story. There were German words seen here and there, such as Polizei and the writings on the Tesla contraption, and they had changed the atomic bombs exploding to another disaster (though still an atomic disaster).

The story is actually quite good, and it is well written and well directed. And the people cast for the various roles really did great jobs in fleshing out their characters and making the story come to life on the screen. And the way the story is told is in a manner that keeps you riveted to the chair wanting to see what happens next. There is a lot of action in the movie, but also a lot of character development, which is really nice.

"K20: The Legend of the Black Mask" really surprised me, and it turned out to be much better than I had initially anticipated. And it was a great thing that it wasn't a superhero movie.

The effects used in the movie were really great, believable and in your face. That worked well for the movie. And the props and costumes were also nicely made, lots of nice touches and details, which I like.

"K20: The Legend of the Black Mask" is a great action movie, and it has a lot of entertainment value right from the very beginning. If you like Japanese movies with lots of action, then this movie is well worth checking out. And it is one of those types of movies that actually have enough entertainment value to be seen more than once.

Thumbs up for this movie! Great fun! Great entertainment!

"K-20" is a visually stunning Japanese steam punk epic with a couple of promising ideas that are destroyed with a too ordinary story and a quite instable acting performance.

The story takes places in an alternate history of the year 1949 in Japan where the second World war never happened. In the fictional capital Teito, the viewer can observe zeppelins and similar flying objects as well as adventurous machines that work with alternate forms of steam or electricity. These science-fiction gimmicks are what make this movie truly imaginative and fantastic. If you observe closely, you will see many lovely details of that kind in this film.

The story is set around the poor circus acrobat Endo Heikichi who needs some money to heal his old and sick master in form of an operation. He is portrayed in a rather weak and horribly faceless way by actor Kaneshiro Takeshi who is one of the reasons why this movie doesn't work as well as it could have been.

Meanwhile, the fictional city is haunted by a smart thief who seems to have twenty different faces or masks and is therefor called K-20. The character seems to be a mixture of Robin Hood who mostly steals from the rich, Spider-Man thanks to his great acrobatic and flying skills and of the Shadow because of his appearance. From that point of view, the movie picks the best influences from famous American superheroes which is not very original.

This thief comes to meet the poor circus acrobat and gives him a lot of money to take a couple of pictures of the engagement ceremony of the intelligent but cold-hearted detective Akechi Kogoro who has become a local celebrity with the charming, vivid and unconventional Hashiba Yoko. These two characters are well portrayed by the stylish and authentic Nakamura Toro and the charming and beautiful Matsu Takako.

The whole thing turns out to be a trap as the circus acrobat gets caught during the event and is now mistaken for the thief with the mask. He gets imprisoned and tortured but suddenly gets some help from a gang of local thieves who liberate him in a quite original way. The acrobat is not very thankful and rather looks for isolation and overtly despises the thieves that saved him. He later realizes that he can flee and must become a smart thief as K-20 is to clear his name and find out about the true criminal intentions of the master thief. This profound change of mind is not very well portrayed in the movie and definitely lacks of passion. Instead of focusing on this important turning point, the film wastes a lot of time with more or less important and gripping dialogues. It's also sad that the thieves that liberated the circus acrobat are promisingly introduced but never seem to appear again in the entire movie.

Endo Heikichi meets K-20 again when the criminal chases the young fiancée Hashiba Yoko through the nocturnal streets of Teito. It seems that the young woman's grandfather had developed a futuristic Tesla machine that could be used as a weapon of mass destruction. The young acrobat, the energizing fiancée and her fiancé and detective try to solve the puzzle to find and destroy the mysterious weapon hidden by the deceased grandfather before K-20 can get his hands on the dangerous machine. The thief of shadows though always seems to be faster and smarter during this fast paced competition that builds up some atmosphere and tension but unfortunately leads to a quite stereotypical ending that could have been taken from any Hollywood assembly-line product.

In the end, the visual parts and the steam punk elements of the movie are quite addicting. The gang of thieves, the circus crew as well as the charming fiancée are positive elements of this movie. This feature builds up some good atmosphere towards the second half that leads to a fast paced competition between the good and the bad.

On the other side, the story of this movie is not quite original and somewhat predictable at some point even if there is a little twist in the end. The main villain is a copy of many Hollywood figures and can't convince. The acting of the main actors is rather poor and leads to some lengths.

After all, the movie is worth a watch if you like steam punk elements or if you collect all possible superhero movies in the world but it can't be counted as a highlight of its genre. Anybody else should skip this one and go for the original superhero movies from Hollywood.

From the cover and description I figured that K-20 would be an exciting, swashbuckling, steampunk, alternate-history high adventure. I thought it would be a cross between Arsene Lupin and The Shadow. But it's not. It's long and quite laborious, with not much pay-off.

Set in a mid-20th century Japan where WWII never happened and where social classes are not allowed to inter-marry, K-20 is a thief and a master of disguise (think of the Mission: Impossible with the rubber masks) who steals inventions and artifacts (though we never actually see much of this happening). I figured he'd be the hero but he's really the antagonist. He sets up Endo, a humble circus performer, to take the blame for his crimes and disappear. But Endo and his fellow peasants are not about to just accept this injustice.

With such an expansive premise, K-20 does little with it's potential. At 137 minutes I've seen film almost half it's length with more more action. It's not much of a caper, it's not much of an adventure. This should have/could have been an epic, but it just ain't. The backdrop is lovely when they make the effort, but more often than not the sets are too low-key and in other wider shots they forgot to hide the fact that it's clearly shot in the present day. The subtitle translations are sometimes inconsistent too.

K-20 was the most fun I had in a movie theater in a long time. Yes, there are deeper movies, and definitely more expensive ones, especially on this side of the ocean. But K-20 kicks Spiderman's butt (or any other recent costumed hero movie) any day of the week. Special effects are there, but this is first of all a movie about people.

Set in an alternate 1949, where Word War II never happened, K-20 takes place in a poorer Japan, that bears many signs of the alliance with the Reich. The sets are very well done, imagine a steampunk Blade Runner mixed with post-Dickens, post-Industrial revolution London. This is Teito, the capital of Japan, where orphans roams the streets and the Imperial aristocracy rules with fear and armed men. One ruthless vigilante roams the streets (well, perhaps the roofs): K-20, who in spite of his professed Robin Hoodism is less than loved by the population, who'd rather root for his arch-enemy, the aristocrat Inspector Akechi. Yet K-20 is not the main character here: the hero is Heikichi Endo, who is framed for the crimes of K-20, beaten and imprisoned. How he will be able to escape, clear his name (and save the world, in passing) keeps you glued to your seat for the over two hours and fifteen minutes of the movie.

The retro atmosphere reminded me a little of Chabon's Kavalier & Clay, if a movie could ever do it justice. Parkour lovers will definitely enjoy the antics of the hero in training. Everyone else, manga fan or not, will have fun.

I've watched this film twice on flights to Japan and enjoyed it on two levels. First, by itself, it is a rousing fun action film--superior to most of the US adaptations from graphic novels. The combination of the CGI vistas with realistic local sets works extremely well: you are reminded that you are in an art deco-influenced alternative reality but the immediate surroundings of squalor in the poverty-stricken lower class sections of the city and opulence in the wealthy neighborhoods are entirely plausible. The action and the fights are great and integrated entirely into the plot, and the performances are solid. The only difficulty is that the identity of the villainous K-20 (and, yes, he IS a villain) is probably too easy to guess, while the hero seems at times too dense.

The second level of enjoyment is how the film contributes to an understanding of Japanese culture. The mixed admiration and dislike for the wealthy artistocratic class who dominated Japan during the early 20th century strongly emerges from the film. The depiction of how Japanese people would react to a spectacular, mysterious criminal was also interesting. I could write more, but perhaps someone should try a serious academic analysis. The bottom line is that its fun to watch--much more fun than The Hulk or V--and, at the same time, it is a uniquely Japanese take on the whole vigilante against an unjust society theme. It is definitely NOT a Japanese "imitation" of anything.

I watched this movie on a lazy evening, and it did provide the pleasant escapism I was looking for. And steampunk, which I can never have too much of. And I see that people appreciate the fact that it hit the right note for most genre key elements.

Well, that was one thing I was hoping it would not do. I was expecting something a bit more zany, in the spirit of "20th Century Boys", which came out the same year. Or maybe just a touch of the slightly older anime "Karas". Instead of that, I got the most standard Hollywood superhero story possible. Everything was there - the reluctant and poor hero, the wicked and rich villain, the take-over-the-world evil scheme, the poor kids fed by the hero, the tada! he was the bad guy the whole time! ending, and we even have a princess.

Of course, the take-over-the-world device is a rather fascinating Tesla machine, and the whole movie contains elements from more than one genre - we got the steampunk city à la Batman, the poor kids à la various Christmas movies, the costumes à la various superhero period pieces (Zorro?), the villain+scheme à la several Bond movies, the alternate history line à la "2009 Lost Memories", and of course everybody is Japanese, which added a bit of extra flavor to an otherwise stale dish. But herein lie further problems, since the alternate history line reminded me of Okiura/Oshii's "Jin-Roh" - a very unflattering comparison, seeing how that is one of the best, and best animated movies in the universe.

Now, Takeshi Kaneshiro is lovely as the main character, and it was really nice to watch him train in parkour - aka the thieves' sport (one more unflattering interference here - the games "Thief"...)(and a flattering one - "Spiderman", which cannot overshadow much), and the whole atmosphere of the city was nicely done. But by the end of the movie my enthusiasm was bleeding heavily, and the final, entirely predictable and old tada! twist finished the last traces of engagement with a swift move.

In fact, I might be more tolerant with this kind of movie when it comes from the US, because that's where the tradition lies. Coming from anywhere else, and with no serious tone, narrative or mood change (as opposed to stuff like "Kung Fu Hustle", but similar to stuff like Salvatores' "The Invisible Boy"), I felt a little bored AND slightly betrayed.

I must stress out however that I do not find the movie by any means awkwardly made, or offensive to any faculty, and I'd have no qualms recommending it to less difficult movie watchers. After all, it really does what it says on the tin, and whatever other expectations I may have had, they were my own issue.

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.

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.

This is possibly the first Japanese movie I have seen that isn't anime and I was very happy with it. I really enjoyed the story that is basically a Japanese version of a Marvel superhero movie. The movie felt like an anime made into a live action film. It was really funny, there was plenty of action and drama and it had a solid story with a great twist.

The special effects and 3D graphics were fantastic and much better than I expected. I didn't think it looked tacky or fake. It is a high quality movie. The characters were really likable and the soundtrack really added to the movie.

For the parents out there, it had a bit of violence, a couple (2-3) of swear words and a couple of sexual references but overall it was very mild compared to most movies out today. It was refreshing to see such a clean movie that I would be happy for my kids (probably age 10+) to watch.

Overall it was very entertaining and I would highly recommend it to everyone.

Fairly well done light entertainment movie with good computer graphics and retro set-up. Some reviewer says Japanese stole Batman, but I would like to present some facts here. K20 character was created in 1930 by Edogawa Rampo, a Japanese pioneer mystery novelist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edogawa_Rampo This movie is based on a recent novel adaptation by a different author. If you think cape and mask means everything MARVEL, think again and do some basic research before saying anything about "originality".

Some other characters like Akechi, and boy-sidekick Kobayashi are also came from Rampo's novels.

Retro set up seems like homage to the original author who wrote juvenile fun novels about K20 vs Akechi before WW2, and I appreciate the director's sensitivity.

excerpt, more at my location - Japanese cinema is known for producing many things from classic monster movies (Godzilla; 1954) to even more classic samurai epics – Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954), Throne Of Blood (1957) and Yojimbo (1961), to name just three – and most recently, supernatural J-Horror such as The Ring (1998), The Grudge (2002) and Dark Water (2002). However, Shimako Sato's latest feature (her first in over ten years) is none of these, and offers a very different vantage on an increasingly popular national cinema.

K-20: The Legend Of The Black Mask is ultimately a disposable, yet highly enjoyable romp: think Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) made as a costumed action-adventure serial. Deep down, there's nothing particularly new here but the film works on sheer bravado, nostalgia and entertainment value alone. Worth a look.

So happy i found this movie, lots of action going on, i knew who the bad guy was not to hard to find out.

But the movie is really fun action pack parkour like assassin creed.

If you can find it check it out.

Firstly, I love the way Tesla is honored in this movie. He gets too little credit for what he has done for our modern society, no thanks to Thomas Edison.

The story is, in my honest opinion, fairly simple. If you are a regular Japanese eiga fan, you would have realized who the villain is from the very beginning.

The CG in this movie is fair and not particularly impressive, but the movie uses it only as a secondary element. The only one I thought interesting was the way the faces/mask are removed.

The acting was as good as Japanese movies get. Most of the actors leading the movie are veterans after all. Only regret is that Matsu Takako didn't get enough screen time for being one of the pivotal characters.

I found myself comparing this movie to V for Vendetta. Alas, the similarities are quite striking in more than a few places. You can think of this as the making of the new titular hero.

This is a kind of movie I'm expected from China but not Japan and it works superbly with great acting, goofy moment, and intense action.

The story takes places in a fiction version of after WWII Japan is now a communist state where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Endo is a poor circus acrobat who get an offer to spy on a wedding. But he get fooled by the K-20 black mask villain. Now a wanted man Endo must confront the K-20 and become a new K-20 but instead of being a villain he becomes a hero.

An interesting comic book hero style from Japan that also show the dark side of communism, and corrupted society. But best of all it shows a great movie. 10/10

I bought K-20 without knowing it was a Japanese movie but it didn't keep me from watching it since I already own a few Japanese movies. However this film turned out to be very fun and enjoyable with well done special effects, awesome stunt work and a plot that manages to hold your interest from start to finish.

Although the film does feel a tad long sometimes it's still a fun watch. The characters are all likable and do eventually grow on you thus encouraging you to watch on.

Overall, it's a fun and enjoyable superhero movie from Japan highly recommended if your are a fan of Japanese films.

This movie is really cool, a lot of special effects, fun adventure, good comedy, and great acting.

This one of the best manga live action movies, and it doesn't slow down on the action.

An awesome movie with a lot of great action that deserves to be more famous .

A circus performer gets a job offer to spy on a wedding, but when he takes photos, a masked vigilante strikes, when everyone look up they see the circus performer and think he is the mysterious vigilante K20.