The villain is insane. That's why he wasn't the real boss of their Triad, he was just a major player in the Triad's arm in Japan. However, he was not a good leader by any means--which is made obvious. The only reason his people seemed to follow him was from fear, or because they no longer wanted to work under the Chinese Triad (which I found odd, because they spoke Mandarin, while the "Triad" is from Hong Kong--maybe I'm ignorant about gangs from mainland China and Taiwan, though). Mizoguchi's insanity is both a good reason and a cheap excuse to explain why he does what he does; why he would plan such an idiotic coup d'etat.
The hero and villain did shoot at each other everytime they saw one another. The only most surprising moment was when they were literally a few feet apart, jumping/strafing across the open doorway (or archway). However, you are instantly shown Miyamoto reloading his gun--Miyamoto did not shoot because he had no bullets. Mizoguchi, on the other hand, is simply a psychopathic idiot. That's the only explanation. He arched his eyebrow and did not shoot, he was too busy thinking, "Hey, it's that punk from the other night."
As the others have said, the movie clearly states that you can only use the speed-enhancing device a few times. Of course, they used it more times than I thought they would. I actually expected them to try to use it and having it not work. Maybe that was in the plot outline, but they scrapped it for time--highly possible. Perhaps they were going to have Miyamoto try to use it at the end, but it doesn't work--then he's saved by the alien force field.
The aliens really didn't have much development in the movie. You see them as warmongering, and then you see their real reason for attacking the Earth. That's about it. They serve to show that humans are selfish power addicts, I suppose.
Milly disappears after they succeed in their mission because they successfully altered the future (significantly) by returning the alien child to his/her people; the war is averted. So, her going back in time never happened. However, if this is true, there is an inconsistency with her being able to go back to place the metal plate in Miyamoto's jacket.
Of course, this phenomenon can also be easily explained by a few lines of explanation. If the director/writers chose to do so, they could have made a number of reasonable excuses: (1) the time machine only used enough energy to send Milly back for a certain period of time (and it coincidentally wore off after she succeeded); (2) once the arm-band that sped them up (or slowed down time) ran out of energy, she would return to the future; (3) there is a third-party monitoring her activities (people, the time machine itself, God, or gods); (4) Milly is sent to limbo or an alternate universe where she retains her memories and eventually receives her improved time-travel devie.
Haha. I guess the excuses are limitless, but in the end, the movie didn't have an explanation, so whatever.
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puppethead23
17 years ago
The villain is insane. That's why he wasn't the real boss of their Triad, he was just a major player in the Triad's arm in Japan. However, he was not a good leader by any means--which is made obvious. The only reason his people seemed to follow him was from fear, or because they no longer wanted to work under the Chinese Triad (which I found odd, because they spoke Mandarin, while the "Triad" is from Hong Kong--maybe I'm ignorant about gangs from mainland China and Taiwan, though). Mizoguchi's insanity is both a good reason and a cheap excuse to explain why he does what he does; why he would plan such an idiotic coup d'etat.
The hero and villain did shoot at each other everytime they saw one another. The only most surprising moment was when they were literally a few feet apart, jumping/strafing across the open doorway (or archway). However, you are instantly shown Miyamoto reloading his gun--Miyamoto did not shoot because he had no bullets. Mizoguchi, on the other hand, is simply a psychopathic idiot. That's the only explanation. He arched his eyebrow and did not shoot, he was too busy thinking, "Hey, it's that punk from the other night."
As the others have said, the movie clearly states that you can only use the speed-enhancing device a few times. Of course, they used it more times than I thought they would. I actually expected them to try to use it and having it not work. Maybe that was in the plot outline, but they scrapped it for time--highly possible. Perhaps they were going to have Miyamoto try to use it at the end, but it doesn't work--then he's saved by the alien force field.
The aliens really didn't have much development in the movie. You see them as warmongering, and then you see their real reason for attacking the Earth. That's about it. They serve to show that humans are selfish power addicts, I suppose.
Milly disappears after they succeed in their mission because they successfully altered the future (significantly) by returning the alien child to his/her people; the war is averted. So, her going back in time never happened. However, if this is true, there is an inconsistency with her being able to go back to place the metal plate in Miyamoto's jacket.
Of course, this phenomenon can also be easily explained by a few lines of explanation. If the director/writers chose to do so, they could have made a number of reasonable excuses: (1) the time machine only used enough energy to send Milly back for a certain period of time (and it coincidentally wore off after she succeeded); (2) once the arm-band that sped them up (or slowed down time) ran out of energy, she would return to the future; (3) there is a third-party monitoring her activities (people, the time machine itself, God, or gods); (4) Milly is sent to limbo or an alternate universe where she retains her memories and eventually receives her improved time-travel devie.
Haha. I guess the excuses are limitless, but in the end, the movie didn't have an explanation, so whatever.
I agree with everything you described here. But as well, everything you described is like something you or I might write. And we are not writers. This is the problem that I brought up in this thread. Filmakers wanting to make a great movie and not concieving of the possibility they may need to hire a REAL writer to create the plot,characters,story. They just say "Heck with that, we'll wing that part of it." or.. "I got my own great idea!" which is pretty absurd since they can't write to a decent college paper much less a script. Leave the script writing to those that are professionals. Or at least someone who has exhimibited writing a really great script.
All too often priorities, not only in Asian films, seem to be like this.
#1 Budget
#2 Director
#3 Actors (Sometimes these this is #1)
#4 Script/Writer
#5 other stuff
I think the very best movies place #4 as top priority. Bad actors cant do too bad to ruin a movie with a great script, but not even the best actors can do much at all to save a movie with a terrible script.
But more often then not in Asian Cinema I see very Flashy movies with no attention on script seemingly except by amateurs, or rather people with no real writing experience. Much like in the video game industry.
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