Andoromedia

Even if, in the future, he becomes the world's most beloved director and everyone everywhere seeks out all his films, Andromedia will be forgotten. There's really no such thing as "typical Miike", but this film is somehow definitely atypical Miike. It's a teeny cyber-thriller that stars not one, but two Japanese teen pop groups, Speed and Da Pump, both of which get a song. Da Pump, the boy band, even gets their own music video in the middle of the movie for no good reason. So, yeah, it's kind of corny, but it's corny in a fun way. And it's just fun to see Miike do this kind of pap. The film's villains – whose motives we never really understand – are goofy and entertaining, especially Christopher Doyle, best know as the cinematographer of Zhang Yimou's Hero, who plays a shorts-wearing evil corporate guy from Detroit. He looks like he was downloaded from the mid-80s. Doyle even gets to dance during Da Pump's big musical number. So Andromedia's not half bad if you can take a bit of goofiness.

Wow. This movie is a serious stinker. Bad special effects, terrible plot points seemingly ripped straight out of the Matrix and Tron, and meanderings into N*Sync dance routines really hamstring this movie from the get-go. I didn't exactly hate it, but it was one of the last domestically available Miike flicks that I hadn't seen and now I know how this one filtered down to the bottom of the list. Sure, there are a handful of scenes that could be called Miike-ian: (the assassin guy turning and looking pensively down the illuminated hallway, the bats flying in the city street, the blossoms falling beneath the beach sakura tree . . .). But for the most part, the film is just a cheesy vehicle for Speed to try and prove that they can act. No dice, ladies.

Who would have thought that the man behind such over-the-top gorefest movies like "Gozu", "Audition", "Ichi The Killer" and "Dead or Alive" would be capable of doing a mainstream, teen romance drama like "Andromedia". "Andromedia" certainly showcases a more different side of the director. While "Andromedia" is not Miike's best work, it sure is his most conventional by far. The Okinawan J-Pop Idol Group "Speed" (Hiroko, Eriko, Takako and Hitoe) put in some good performances and demonstrate that they are far better actresses than singers. The SFX are impressive, especially the Computer Animation and CGI work. While the story is basically your standard `Ghost' variant (in this case in reverse with the girl coming back as a Computer Hologram/CGI Character), it still succeeds in touching all the right emotional buttons. The movie is marred however by the shameless cameos of boy band "Da-Pump" (Shinobu, Issa, Ken and Yukinari) and frequent HK Film foreign actor Christopher Doyle who put in incredibly bad performances. The movie is reminiscent of the 80's Kadokawa movies featuring then idols such as Yakushimaru Hiroko and Harada Tomoyo. This was definitely a nice and pleasant surprise.

I've read a bit and found out about how Takashi Miike goes about making films. First off, it's almost never his idea for the film. A screenwriter or producer will contact him and then the ball will start rolling.

Here's the deal with Andromedia (the American title): Takashi Miike's prior film was The Bird People of China, which showed that he could actually direct an

audience friendly, traditional, and dare I say mainstream film. Miike was not terribly interested when someone contacted him about Andromedia. However,

he found an element of satire in the idea of the film, and I don't blame him. The plot of this picture is that a girl, Mai, dies, and her father, using the unexplained "magic" of computers, uploads her memories into an A.I system (cutely named

Ai). Oh, and there are two bad Japanese pop groups thrown into the system.

What emerges is Miike's stab at satire, at best. At worst, it's a sappy teen drama with poorly developed characters and an undefined plot. At the end of the film, you really do not realize what the villains in the film were up to. Ever. There is no motivation given for any of the villains. In fact, there is a double-betrayal towards the end of the movie that makes absolutely no sense at all.

So I chose to view the film as a satire, realizing that I had totally wasted my money expecting the usual from Takashi Miike (violence, sex, human emotions,

and dark, dark humor). Turns out I was not even granted good satire. The few

moments of hilarity come whenever boy-band Da Pump is on screen, especially

during their hilariously bad musical number, featuring pyrotechnics and bad

dance steps. Other than that, the film actually seems to take itself seriously. Which is really depressing considering how bad it is.

So, if you're looking for an interesting teen drama, don't bother. If you're looking for a satire, don't bother. And if you're looking for Takashi Miike, I don't know where the hell he went either.

4/10

More than any other Miike movie, suspended disbelief is an absolute prerequisite for watching this Sci-Fi soap opera / J-Pop video. Cuteness, chrome, and special FX ooze from the screen on every stage of the bubble-gum tale of "love conquers all" with the over-the-top melodramatic absurdity of a sakura tree blossoming in the middle of a beach. In the words of one of the characters in his ultimate Jesus/Oedipus moment of surrender to his own fate: "This is ironic. At the very last moment I finally learn of that man's true motives." Ironically Miike's viewers can't say the same, which most likely, is his true motive.

Recommended only to fans of both Miike AND J-Pop.