User reviews

I am not a fan of the Gantz manga and I have not even read it. I don't really read manga and comics. So when it comes to a live-action adaptation, I am clueless about the characters but I can make out with the adaptation's explanation or the adaptation may even prompt me to pick up the manga. Gantz as far as I know is famous for its over-the-top violence and nudity. I saw many criticisms on the adaptation saying that it lacks of blood and nudity. For a general movie-goer who does not know what to expect in the adaptation will find this a little bloody and will wish for some more nudity.

The story: There is a sick game which revives dead people and commands them to play along. Their tasks are to kill aliens. Aliens!!! Once an alien dies, the players are given points according to their contribution to the death of the alien. A number of points will reward that person. Gantz is touted as a big-budget action sci-fi movie. And yes, it is. The big action scenes especially the final one show that much money is spent. The aliens look okay but are unique in some ways. Characters wise is okay, some are a bit interesting but some are just there for sake of being there. The pace is decent for a Japanese movie, not to say that all Japanese movies are slow-paced. Watching this feels like watching the Japanese doing a Hollywood movie which is decently paced and features big action scenes. With the final movie completing this series, it will be expected to end with a cliffhanger.

Overall: It is good for a Japanese action movie, it could be one of the best I have seen. But for a character movie, it could have done better. It is worth a watch whether you are a Gantz fan or not. Since fans are saying that the manga has more violence and nudity, I am compelled to pick up the manga and to see if it is true. For a non-Gantz fan, I can't wait for part 2 which will conclude the movie series. Sadly, Singaporeans will have to wait.

I only know the summary part of the manga, so I will stick to the movie itself. The movie starts with two old friends( ? ) that coincidentally meet on a train platform. In this brief moment, they attempt to rescue a man off of the train tracks and in trying this, they are killed by the oncoming train. Or were they? The two awaken in a room with a few other strangers, all of which claim to have been killed. Accompanying them is a mysterious black orb which gives some very vague instructions on what the "group" needs to do. Basically the task is to kill aliens that are on the earth hiding out. Sounds corny, but it is far from that. The movie is so well filmed including cinematography, editing, locale that pretty much whatever the group was sent to do was going to be a treat. Lucky for us viewers, it was an exciting mission at that. As the movie progresses, we learn that each person is awarded "points" for surviving (since if not, well, they are dead) and what can be done with those points is part of the mystery. The effects are very good, and basic, not overdone at all. This makes it much easier to get into the film and the characters in it. The acting was very good, even if I personally had to be distracted from their performances by reading the subtitles. Either way, I could tell by visual features and expressions that it was well done. Each encounter gets more and more difficult, as one would assume, and leads to a very open ended climax that makes you want to see more. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie from start to finish and recommend it to anyone that likes sci-fi and originality. Please Hollywood, can you keep your hands off and not remake this, let the Japanese do their thing, they have brought us a gem in this as it is. Enjoy. 6.9/10

This movie started out so good, it was almost criminal it turned out to be such completely unbelievable crap in the end.

The basic premise was good, for this kind of movie that is:

1. A bunch of guys die for several reasons.

2. The end up in a room with a mysterious black globe.

3. The globe gives them missions to kill UFOs residing in Japan. Hinting that they may redeem their lives this way.

4. They are given suitcases with black suits and cool sci-fi guns.

5. They are attacked by vicious UFOs.

So any person equipped with more than two brain cells would have:

1. Donned the suit.

2. Quickly checked out the weapon and got ready for the mission.

3. You wanna get your life back, right?

This far into the movie, I expected they would, I was eager for what was to come. This could be great!

Then they are magically "lasered" away to someplace in Tokyo and the UFO guy is not late to show up. Well not to spoil what happens too much, they are completely unprepared for the mission. And why?

1. They have completely failed to put on their cool black suits. OK, they girl has put it on. And looks good in it!

2. They have completely failed to check out their cool weapons.

Not to to spoil the movie, if there is anything to spoil, let me say this as a reality check:

1. If I knew I had died and had a chance to redeem my life by carrying out a mission, I would be sure to use any equipment given me.

2. If a monster was attacking me or my fellow undead, I would be sure to shoot first and ask questions later. Out of pure survival instinct.

3. If a monster was beating the crap out of one of my friends, then, even if I had no gun, I would do something to help out, lest I live in shame for the rest of my life.

4. If I was a hopeless nerd like most of the guys in the movie, and a cool beautiful girl showed interest in me, I would at least talk to her.

The guys in this movie, though, fail on all these basic point of normal behaviour. They are all prize-winning village idiots, almost autistic in their passiveness, hopelessly asocial towards the beautiful girls that seem to like these idiots, egoistic, craven individuals who can't use a weapon or even throw a stick at a monster in order to save their own or other people's lives. They lack the most basic survival instincts or humanity.

As a result, I spent most of the movie shouting "FOR THE LOVE GOD MAN, SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT!!"

I'm not a trigger-happy man in normal situations... But with vicious UFOs attacking me, come and get some! :-)

The unusually bad character set is the cancer of this series, including TV anime and comics. In this film, the acting of a tall actor is as bad as the character setting. Even so (the unbearable), this film, as well as its sequel and "O", still has a lot of highlights. It can even be said that they are rare masterpieces in urban legendary movies.

I haven't watched the Anime nor read Manga, but came across this movie checking for some live actions from Anime. The idea behind it's interesting and always enjoyable that not everything will be explained leaving the audience to make their own assumptions. One great director once said, he makes 50% of the movie and the audience does the other 50%. The way you understand the movie doesn't have to be the way the director had in his mind.

Sorry, coming back to the movie, it reminds me of 'The cube' in terms of the characters, how they ended up there and what's the goal. Worth giving it a try, but as i say in the subject of this comment, you need to be familiar of japanese acting. If you come from Hollywood movies to this type for the first time, it may be hard to fully enjoy.

If you like Shinsuke Sato's prominent works such as Alice in Borderland and Kingdom, you'll love "Gantz", especially given its earlier production compared to those. A visually striking sci-fi action film that explores profound themes amidst its intense action sequences and impressive visual effects. The movie investigates existential questions about life, death, and the nature of humanity, delivering exhilarating action scenes from its talented cast, led by Kazunari Ninomiya and Kenichi Matsuyama. It's still worth noting that the film's graphic violence and gore might narrow its potential audience appeal.

I did not read the manga, but I did watch the entire anime a few years back. The anime had 2 full seasons to tell the story, the movie had just two hours. So clearly while it is not as rich as the anime, the movie does a very good job given the time restriction.

I had no expectations when I started to watch it, however after 15 minutes I was a believer, and even if I didn't know the story, still a pretty decent movie. Very nice FX and a high quality production to it.

As fiction flicks goes, it is not for everybody, but If you like the theme and/or anime/manga culture, go for it for sure. And the sequel is already in the works, so we will get our Gantz fix soon enough.

Gantz is a black ball that recruits people that have already died in order to kill random aliens that are hidden on Earth. It does it completely randomly and to make it fun it presents it as a game: make 100 points and you can be out. The catch is that the threats are usually so bad that you can't reach 100 or if you do, you also get the option to revive a dead mate. The manga is full of crybabies that never find the time to deal with their emotions before they get killed and the film is not very different either. As others have said, if the ball tells you to kill something and it gives you a gun, use it, then consider your damn feelings and moral judgement.

All in all a good live adaptation of the beginning of the Gantz manga. There are at least two other movies in the series and they will probably continue where this left off without any closure whatsoever.

First, let me start by saying that the main characters here were the popular actors in our generation. Japan's entertainment industry would always hire their most popular celebrities for the lead role even though their acting is not up to standards.

There are many amazing actors in Japan but they're usually the veterans or the ones doing indie movies. Kazunari and Kenichi's acting skills on this movie are very disappointing. The way the writers changed the plot and write the scenes didn't help at al.

Yuriko playing Tae proved that Japanese show business is all about looks. Yuriko is a very pretty actress. Her character, Tae, is supposed to be a very normal looking girl - not pretty, not ugly, and the type that society doesn't pay attention to.

It's already 2022 so I really hope Japanese entertainment industry has changed.

I'm a fan of the original anime, though I never got around to actually reading the manga. I loved the brutality and tragedy of the original anime, so this movie had quite a different feel to it overall.

I liked the changes they made to adapt the story to a movie. There was a lot of back story with the characters that had to be ignored or compressed, but when you're focusing on 2-3 characters in 2 hours, that is to be expected.

Overall I liked the special effects, the casting was pretty good, and although I'm not sure about the changes in the ending they made, i'm OK with what they've done to make this into an interesting sci-fi movie that is worth watching.

When I got this I was hoping for a Sci-fi movie with some shooting, a bit of a story and some interesting characters. This is exactly what I got.

The pace of the movie is typically Eastern, the action scenes are fast and packed, the rest is slow and considered.

A large portion of the film is dedicated to the characters trying to find out who they are; as well as trying to understand each other.

Don't expect too much exposition. Why does all this strange stuff happen? Because it's a Sci-fi movie; roll with it.

The affects are good, the bad guys are interesting and (compared to Western villains) refreshing and quirky.

ACting is good, camera work solid, production lavish.

Thru their deaths by misfortune, various people are periodically recruited by a machine in the form of a dark sphere called "Gantz"(I'm guessing it's completely random since an old lady and a kid were also conscripted). At the center of all this are 3 young people: 2 guys and a girl. The 2 guys, Kel and Kato, have a history but hadn't seen each other in a while. Kel is at first timid, and even cowardly but later sees himself as heroic. Kato is intense and shudders and grimaces a lot (killed his father and went to juvie). The girl is a real cute "girly girl" who panics and runs away a lot. She's got the hots for Kato who doesn't notice or care cause he's too busy grimacing and thinking about other people.

A very decent movie with a nice concept but marred mainly by one annoying fact: Time and time again one of these people had an opportunity to shoot the threat and did not do it. Or did (eventually), but then instead of firing again, and again ----and again, if necessary, until said threat was demolished they just stood around with their mouth open wasting time until the threat recovered to attack again (Man, was that annoying!!!). If that won't get under your skin too much and you like sci-fi, I recommend this. Love, Boloxxxi.

Clearly this is not a low budget movie, the special effects are pretty good. The premise is good too. However the movie fails at everything else, and the main thing that bring is down is the complete lack of logic. Most of the movie goes like this:

1) Monster is moving slowly or not moving at all 2) People are just staring at it or running away, even those who know that the guns work really well against monsters. Nobody is trying to shoot it. 3) Monster hurts one of the main characters 4) There's a long an boring cut scene with the cheesiest dialogue you can imagine. Meanwhile the monster is taking a break, not doing anything 5) One of the main character shoots the monster, having no problems 6) Repeat

There are a few characters (guy in glasses) that do absolutely nothing the whole movie. Seriously, nothing, zero. They just hang out, don't participate in fights, don't help anybody, don't say anything interesting.

So other than the main idea, the script is absolutely rubbish. It's like it was written by a ten year old who saw the original manga series.

With just a bit of effort this movie could've been one of the coolest sci-fi movies in a long time, but it was completely ruined by bad script, horrible dialogue, mediocre acting.

This is too bad, good sci-fi movies are pretty rare.

If you think that only Hollywood is tapping deep into comic book source material for its films, well they're not alone, with the Japanese also digging deep into its rich manga culture for adaptations to bring to the silver screen. It's taken Gantz quite some time to reach our shores given that the concluding sequel had already been aired weeks ago and we're only getting the first installment, but as I say it's always better late than never. Based upon the original works by Hiroya Oku, Gantz is a science fiction fantasy film that posed a lot more questions than it answered, and really asks that you put aside nagging thoughts and accept things for what they are at face value until the second film rolls along.

We're introduced to the teenagers Masaru Kato (the popular Kenichi Matsuyama) and Kei Kurono (Kazunari Ninomiya) who meet by chance at a subway station, once best friends with the latter always standing up for the former. They get involved in rescuing a man who had fallen onto the train tracks, but in the process get themselves killed, yet transported into some sparse apartment room together with strangers, all of whom had their life expired, and a huge black orb to whom they owe their temporal lives to. Here's where a lot of questions get tossed up as to the origins of the orb, and some thick existential queries - are they really dead, or operating on a separate limbo plane, or are really just dreaming - but put all of these aside to just soak up the ground rules that the characters have to engage in, and the set action sequences that come with the territory.

To help make the narrative a little bit more palatable, treat it as an extreme version of Men in Black, where a randomly selected group of apparently dead folks get topped up into an existing team, all of whom are given exo-skeleton suits to power up and weapons fit to kill aliens who walk this earth. Gantz, the orb within which houses a comatosed bald man communicating via a console on the orb, summons the players, sets the mission objectives, and teleports them into the thick of the action. Survive, and you get to live another day. Die, and you'll stay dead permanently. With a catch of course, where a Gantz summoned player earn meagre points in a mission (in addition to getting insulted), and a 100 points allows one to either wipe one's memory and go back to the "real world" not remembering a single thing when serving Gantz, or opting to resurrect a fallen comrade.

The first hour or so is spent learning the ground rules, and what better way than to be thrown into the deep end of the pool in an effort to immerse both the characters and audience in double quick time. Our main protagonists with their different perspectives and values often come up clashing against once another in their ideals, but when push comes to shove it's a life and death issue should they choose not to cooperate with each other, and with others in the same boat, unless of course one decides to use the clueless newbies as fodder.

The story's made more interesting with this particular contrast between the two leads, one being very reluctant to shed more blood and taking it upon himself to ensure that the newbies are properly briefed and told of the risks involved, often being ridiculed, while the other sees his new life under Gantz as an opportunity to rise up and be the hero he's meant to be, since in real life he's a zero this presents him a chance to answer what would be his calling in life, bordering on arrogance and partaking in riskier maneuvers. But alas given the need to cram everything into a slightly more than two hour film, you can bet that plenty of characterization and development got thrown out of the window, and subplot casualties include the romances between Kato and buxomy Kei Kishimoto (Natsuna Watanabe), and that of Kurono and fellow student and manga enthusiast Tae Kojima (Yuriko Yoshitaka), whom I suspect will have a much larger role in the concluding film.

Surprisingly there is plenty of bloody violence and gore peppered throughout the film, sticking close to the treatment as in the manga and anime, with only the gratuitous nudity in the source materials being toned down by quite a bit in the live action movie. Computer generated graphics are the order of the day, as plenty of futuristic weapons got produced, in addition to the skin tight exo-skeleton suit. Villainous aliens take on different looks, from robots with awkward mobility, to inhabiting statues of Buddhas that give rise to one of the largest action sequences in the film that came complete with high casualty and property damage.

Undoubtedly a special effects extravaganza, Gantz is ultimately half a film, and I am looking forward to the concluding episode to wrap up the open questions posed here. After all, the sequel's subtitle is Perfect Answer, so I'm really hoping for that to happen. Stay tuned during and after the closing credits for that trailer to the sequel, and tell me if that doesn't pique your interest even more, so much so that like me I'm putting that anime DVD collection on my wish list. Recommended!

I actually don't like film adaptations of anime, there's something crazy about trying to follow a series that's roughly 12 hours in length down to a suitable movie format of 1.5 to 3 hrs. What surprised me about the film adaptation of Gantz, is how well they adapted the idea of getting transported to a room relentlessly by a alien sphere to fight aliens shortly after your own death, instead of simply trying trying to mash the plot into a shorter format. They kept most of the aliens, but changed a lot to the series which is pretty refreshing after it had been out for five years. Also, the film is just as brutal and violent as it is in the anime, maybe even more so with the film's added realism.

I get that it's a movie with a time constraint, but cmon. Why even waste the time to make a film that can barely scratch the surface of the story. Stick to the anime and the animated film Gantz 0 if you want to watch anything Gantz.

I first watch the movie then te manga collection and believe me, I enjoyed the movie... I must say the manga was great but the movie was very good.

First of all, most people are talking about the anime/manga and that the movie ain't the same. You cant make the same effect because if you draw you use a pencil ( use your imagination and you will put it on the paper) if you make a movie you cant use every thing you like because some time its not possible to put it in the big screen + then it would be exactly the same as the manga and people will say they just copied the script from the manga/anime !!!

Some people say please shoot shoot shoot than it would be like statship troopers it would sucked. You should put you're self in there shoes, the first time you see an alien you don't believe what you see you freez e and all that mambo jambo ........... i think you understand

i love people who critisies dit you ever made a movie no shut up then

What a silly movie about absolutely awful people. Some ok CGI effects and concepts but other than that, I have never hoped that the protaginists die horrible deaths so much in a movie before.

Really not much to recommend here.

Japanese movies were often innovative, groundbreaking, trend-setting, also for the western movie industry. This declined during the last 10 - 15 years, that may (towards I tend to believe) or may not caused by the growing occurrence of Anime movies, often Manga-based. Therefore, Asian quality movies are now coming more from other countries.

'Gantz' has its origins in a popular 'Seinen' Manga (for adults), which were in Japan also successful as Anime series. It starts up with a mystery. A few people are rematerialized in a room after their obvious death. The machinery responsible for their resurrection uses unimaginable technology, but orders them to fight against so-called 'Aliens', and to gain points like in an ordinary video-game. Confronted with their first mission the people react different, some of them are killed, but most of them are completely disturbed.

Until the first mission the movie is (from a western point of view) intriguing; effects and design ideas are announcing a decent mystery/sf experience, if the audience isn't aware of the Manga/Anime.

That lasts about 10, maybe 15 minutes, until one realizes, that any further impressing film experience will not happen. If you know the Manga or the Anime series, you know that the movie won't bring any deeper insights than disturbed people, hesitating to pull the trigger even when it goes for their (second) life, and Aliens mostly waiting for being destroyed between cheesy dialogs. Most of the Anime's sexual content and language is absent in the movie; but not the inexplicable behavior of the participants, both human or alien (or director/writer/producer).

Furthermore, there is no real mystery, as one, who is not familiar with the 'Gantz' Manga, may hope. It's simple simple simple. The machine is for playing the game, it's not something between the realms of death and life, it's no matter of Karma or God or the Devil. It's a machine built for a game, built by someone, and this someone isn't even a computer nerd version of an AVP predator. So, there is no revelation, no development. There isn't even a noticeable story anymore.

Between the fights the survivors are released to the real world, so they may continue their lost life, until they are transferred to the next mission, where new dead people arrive mostly to be killed because of their freezing despair (women) or dumbness (men). The real-life part of the characters between the missions is mostly lengthened and could have been cut with very little effect.

If someone would argue, that there are insights shown to the abysms of human behavior or the illness of the society, or something that goes one millimeter deeper than Video Game Shooting, I could not disagree more than to that. I would accept it for 'Gamer', but not 'Gantz'.

Overall, the movie could have been cut to some 75 min. length, and as a result it would be slightly entertaining for an audience with an IQ greater 70.

People who expect a decent Japanese movie, will be deeply disappointed. There is a CGI quality to mention, but asides from the flawed plot, there is too much overacting and screaming, to keep the level at least in the B class.

This is a lot better than I expected, although I wish I'd known Gantz 2 was actually a sequel that was better than the original, or at least a vital part of what should have been a multi-episode mini-series. If I had watched both together I would have enjoyed much much more. I assumed it would be a light fun sci-fi popcorn movie, but it has much more depth than that in the end which makes it truly satisfying. It suffers from a dialogue issue I find with a lot of Asian import films, whereas the humor or exposition doesn't quite translate to English, but that's not really a fault so much as to be expected. It was a wise decision to use Asian actors to do the English overdubs , and the cast do an excellent job of mimicking to the tracks although clearly not speaking the vocal. The director has a clear and concise vision here, and is completely successful in finessing the photography although he really shines in Gantz 2. The action and fight scenes are a joy, with the wire-acrobatics and choreography you'd expect. Against the alien mutants in Gantz-1 they are great to watch, but against the more human aliens in Gantz-2 they're much more appreciated. Gantz-1 has more of a humorous undertone to it than Gantz-2 (although that turns out to be a mistake when dealing with the robot mutant, he's a badass), where Gantz-2 is much more sinister and dark. There are no glaring plot holes (save one in G-2 that I assume just got left on the editing room floor) in either piece. Plot is fluid and not plodding. The production budget is greatly increased in G-2 and it shows. The ending of Gantz/Gantz-2 as a set piece is perfect, with very little room for any attempt of a "Gantz-3 : Resurrection!!", and that makes it even more satisfying. Cast is capable and believable, even past the leads. Don't watch one without the other, you'll benefit.