Wicked City

Unknown to most of the world, our world shares custody with that of the “Black World”, a dark dimension inhabited by Demons.  Taki Renzaburo is a member of the Black Guard of Earth, tasked with keeping the peace during an uneasy truce between the two worlds.  The time has come for the treaty that holds things together to be renewed and Taki has been tasked with protecting a high value asset alongside a beautiful Black Guard Agent from the Black World, Makie.  Demonic radicals who’d love nothing more than to see the world burn are coming for them.  To stay alive, Taki and Makie must confront the unrelenting terror, temptations and pure darkness of the Wicked City. 

Wicked City serves as the first solo directorial debut of Yoshiyaki Kawajiri, the man responsible for one of my all time favorite Anime action movies, Ninja Scroll.  It’s also a movie that is a perfect selection for this month of horror themed films as it shows off the darker, edgier and more adult side of Anime, one that is a definite precursor to the roaring 90’s when Anime was all about being as Anti Disney Family Friendly as possible.  This includes some scary monster designs, gross body horror imagery and more than a few steps into the realm of the Adult Anime Section aka Hentai.  Wicked City certainly isn’t a film for the young or the squeamish and it might just be one of the most mature offerings I’ve ever looked at for review.  But does that make it any good?
 
Right from the get go, I can see why this film made Kawajiri an in demand name for the Action Anime genre. A lot of his visual cues from Ninja Scroll can be seen here, particularly in how he stages and executes his action sequences.  Bloody, hard hitting and packed with a lot of coolness, Wicked City feels like a supernatural version of Blade Runner at times, especially with Taki packing his specialized revolver that can end most otherworldly threats in a single shot.  But Wicked City isn’t a straight up action flick like Ninja Scroll and Kawajiri shows he has a good eye for horror, which this movie has in abundance.  The Demons of the Black World are terrifying and dangerous and their transformations from beautiful maidens into the stuff of nightmares is nothing short of horrific.  It invokes the style of John Carpenter’s The Thing and other body horror classics of the 1980’s like The Fly.  Couple that with some nice and tense build up and an excellent use of shadows and at times Wicked City can be genuinely scary.  When the action kicks off though, it kicks off and seeing Demons getting gunned down or sliced always looks awesome when Kawajiri is at the helm.
 
So Horror, check.  Action, double check.  And Wicked City does those well.  Everything else is a bit…questionable.  The film opens with a segment that quickly veers itself into a scene from the adult video section and Wicked City isn’t afraid to show off its continuously naughty side.  In a way, this feels like an attempt to make Hentai more mainstream for the world but this works to the movies detriment, unfortunately.  Several of these steamy NSFW scenes go on for too long and often they feel like they add little to the already shaky plot.  They also feel repetitive as well.  Several of these hardcore scenes usually start with a beautiful woman getting quickly naked before changing into a horrifying monster to dispense death and mayhem and there’s not a lot of variety in that regard.  I’m not saying you cant have this kind of content in your Adult Action Cinema but it has to have a point and be able to advance the plot beyond a couple of choice scares.  Otherwise, you can just go look up Hentai on the internet.
 
There are attempts to make all this naughty action factor into the plot, specifically for the growth of our two leads.  Kawajiri draws fantastic and very attractive character designs and Makie and Taki are no exceptions (especially Makie, wow she’s gorgeous).  However, their characters feel very, very dry and they don’t feel as deeply explored as they could be.  Taki is the muscle who alternates between being damn good at his job and being in constant need of saving.  Makie is a graceful but ruthless fighter but she constantly gets kidnapped and subjected to many of Wicked Citys more…wicked set pieces.  These two live in separate worlds of darkness, death and sex and the far latter seems to draw more focus for this plot.  The attempts at creating a romance between these two doesn’t feel earned and as much as I want to like these two, Taki and Makie just aren’t very memorable outside of their roles as action hero and heroine and lovers.  And then there’s Mayart, who really pushes the envelope on acceptancy of potty humor as he’s mostly played for one note comic relief in that he wants women and sex and nothing else and isn’t shy about getting handsy with Makie.  He’s instantly unlikeable and while the two Black Guards are supposed to protect him, you have to wonder if Mayart’s lewdness even makes him worth the headache…which he isn’t.
 
If you’re looking for scares and action, Wicked City delivers nicely thanks to a director who’s just starting to come into his own.  The setting is appropriately creepy and the creatures of darkness infesting it are living nightmares come to life.  It’s a shame that an unmemorable cast and an over excessive need to sex things up hold this movie back at many turns.  It certainly doesn’t strike the balance that Kawajiri would find years later in Ninja Scroll.  But Wicked City shows me he was on his way there.  It’s not a bad rough draft but it’s a rough draft nonetheless
 
6.5/10
 
Next Week, we’re checking out Yoshiyaki Kawajiri’s directorial follow up to Wicked City…and hopefully that means he’s fine tuned a few things to make a better balanced action/horror fest.  It’s Demon City Shinjuku, Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.